Trade
About 80% of Belgium's trade is with fellow EU member states. Given this high percentage, it seeks to diversify and expand trade opportunities with non-EU countries. The Belgian authorities are, as a rule, anti-protectionist and try to maintain a hospitable and open trade and investment climate. The European Commission negotiates on trade issues for all member states, which, in turn lessens bilateral trade disputes with Belgium.
The Belgian Government encourages new foreign investment as a means to promote employment. With regional devolution, Flanders, Brussels, and Wallonia are now courting potential foreign investors and offer a host of incentives and benefits. Foreign companies in Belgium account for approximately 11% of the total work force, with the U.S. share at about 5%. Attracted by the EU 1992 single-market program, many foreign firms and lawyers have settled in Brussels since 1989.
Read more about this topic: Economy Of Belgium
Famous quotes containing the word trade:
“Whatever trade one is in, one will find some fault with it.”
—Chinese proverb.
“Is there something in trade that dessicates and flattens out, that turns men into dried leaves at the age of forty? Certainly there is. It is not due to trade but to intensity of self- seeking, combined with narrowness of occupation.... Business has destroyed the very knowledge in us of all other natural forces except business.”
—John Jay Chapman (1862–1933)
“No king on earth is as safe in his job as a Trade Union official. There is only one thing that can get him sacked; and that is drink. Not even that, as long as he doesn’t actually fall down.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)