Essenscia, the federation for the chemical industry and life sciences and the Minister of the Economy are launching a campaign to promote the Belgian chemical and plastic materials processing cluster to foreign investors.

The project has been called "Belgium, a world champion for chemicals and plastics today and tomorrow". In addition, in collaboration with Essenscia and the companies, the Federal Government is setting up a High Level Chemical Group with the intention of improving the investment climate in the chemical and plastic materials processing sector.

The chemical industry is a crucial sector for the Belgian economy. The sector employs 94,000 people (150,000 indirectly) and represents 30% of its exports. In setting up a High Level Group for the chemical industry, the Government is demonstrating its desire to collaborate with the sector in improving the investment climate in our country, because our chemical sector must continue to occupy its position as "world champion" tomorrow as well.

11 out of the 15 leading international chemical companies have production sites in Belgium. The chemical industry's share in the overall economy in Belgium is twice as great as the European average and even greater than in a country noted in particular for its chemical industry such as Germany. Our companies are also making very targeted investments in R&D in order to find innovative solutions to the major internal challenges of food production, water, health, climate warming, the economical use of energy and natural resources. The demand for sustainable products from the chemical industry can only increase in coming decades with the growth in world population.

For futher information:
Frank Beckx, Essenscia spokesperson, tel. 02 238 97 08, gsm 0476 80 94 74, fbeckx@essenscia.be

Marie Strowel, communication adviser, tel. 02 238 99 12, gsm 0474 92 01 40, mstrowel@essenscia.be

Last year, Essenscia launched a campaign to promote the life sciences, and more particularly, the Belgian biopharmaceutical industry: “Belgium, the place to be for biopharmaceutical R&D and manufacturing”.
For further information: www.investinbiopharma.be

Essenscia press release - 09 November 2009