In these cold days, I was asked to write something on our warm and hospitable region of Antwerp and Waasland and our Chamber of Commerce. I am not an original inhabitant of Antwerp, nor of Waasland – which are basically the right and left bank of the river Scheldt; so I can state in a
It is necessary that the benefits of trade and open markets are better understood by those who account for 70% of GDP and private employment in Belgium: the SME’s, whose share of total export is much smaller.
Let’s get straight to the point: 2016 was not a good year for international trade. I am not talking about the Belgian trade figures – only a slight decrease for the nine first months compared to 2015 – but about the current climate around free trade.