Foreign investment in Wallonia does not know the meaning of the word "crisis". 2008 could even be portrayed as the best year with regard to the achievements of foreign groups in the south of the country. 122 foreign investment projects totalling 776 million euros were realised in the Wallonia Region last year. They enabled the creation of 2543 direct jobs.


15,838 jobs in 8 years

The foreign investment curve is constantly progressing, which confirms the analysis of commentators who maintain that there is no end to Wallonia's attractiveness. Foreign investors injected approximately 5.75 billion euros into the Wallonia economy through 723 successful projects between 2000 and 2008. Their contribution enabled the creation of 15,838 local jobs.

The sectors attracting the most foreign money over the period under examination are chemicals (923.25 million euros), paper (768.31 million euros), metalworking (617.37 million euros), logistics (approx. 542 million euros) and food processing (540.3 million) in particular.

With regard to job creation, the logistics sector comes out on top with 2888 jobs, followed by metalworking (2118 jobs), chemicals (1551 jobs) and food processing (1595 jobs). Taking the geographical origin of foreign capital into account, Europe takes the lead with 11 220 jobs created, followed by the Americas (3819 jobs),



La Libre Belgique - Philippe Lawson - published online on 29/01/2009