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Ahead of the curve

Flanders is bucking a European trend with lucrative returns from its biotech industry

Flanders has become a real hub for biotechnology, with half the biotech shares traded these days on the Euronext stock exchange belonging to companies based here. So what exactly is biotech, and what’s the secret of the region’s success?

Last month, more than 16,000 visitors from 65 countries gathered in Chicago for the annual Bio International Convention, the world’s largest event for the biotech industry. It’s a little like the World’s Fair, with a Belgian pavilion that gathers the country’s participating companies. There, visitors to the convention – not tourists, but businessmen representing other biotech firms – were introduced to, apart from waffles, fries and beer, another of our prestigious exports: biotechnology.

Senne Sterckx
(May 15, 2013)

Drug campaign for sick child was PR stunt

Alexion stoked public outrage to force the government to pay for treatment

The head of pharma.be, the Association of the Pharmaceutical Industry, has criticised a drug manufacturer that employed a PR company to stoke up public controversy over a seven-year-old boy with a rare disease. The action was an effort to force the federal government to pay out millions of euros every year for experimental treatments. Leo Neels, director-general of pharma.be, said the company’s approach was “unacceptable”.

Viktor, from Erembodegem, East Flanders, suffers from atypical haemolytic-uraemic syndrome, an immune system disorder caused by an E coli infection. The body destroys its own red bloods cells, which can lead to kidney failure. The disease affects mainly children, of whom there are only about a dozen in Belgium.

Alan Hope
(May 8, 2013)

Waterways back open

Barge operators sign an agreement with the government of Flanders

Shipping on Flanders’ inland waterways was last week getting slowly back to normal after an agreement signed by the Flemish government with the Federation of Belgian Inland Shippers (FBB) brought an end to protest actions that had blocked ports for more than a week.

According to the FBB, three out of four barge operators in Flanders is in financial difficulties, made worse by the pressure from Dutch competitors, who, they say, receive more support from their government.

Alan Hope
(May 1, 2013)

Flemish ports to co-operate

New Flanders Port Area agreement will work to increase the market share

The four ports of Flanders – Antwerp, Ghent, Ostend and Zeebrugge – will co-operate more closely in the future to improve their competitive position internationally. Last week representatives of the ports, together with the Flemish Harbour Association and public works minister Hilde Crevits, signed a co-operation agreement.

The document consists of 30 main points spread across six fields of activity. Goal number one is to increase the shipping traffic to Flanders. One way to do that will be to create added-value projects in the hinterland. Antwerp and Zeebrugge will work together to attract a greater share of the growing traffic from Asia to Northern Europe; Zeebrugge and Ostend will work to promote cruise traffic; and all four ports will combine their efforts to promote and market Flanders abroad, for example at trade fairs and on international missions.

Alan Hope
(April 24, 2013)

Lights out for Alfacam

The launch of its own TV stations proves fatal to the media services group

Alfacam, the TV and media services company that featured on every list of world-class Flemish businesses is on the brink of being broken up or declared bankrupt, after negotiations to find a new owner broke down last week.

Alfacam was founded by Gabriel Fehervari, the child of Hungarian refugees, in 1985. It provided technical services such as cameras and outside-broadcast studios to TV producers. The company quickly established a strong reputation and won important contracts at home – beginning with the Night of the Proms – and abroad, picking up the contract in 2005 to provide services for the Olympic Games in Beijing in 2008.

Alan Hope
(April 17, 2013)

Lock up your data

Recent online privacy breaches should put data security at the top of Flanders’ digital agenda

From addresses and birthdays to relationships and credit card details, huge parts of all our lives are now stored online, and we trust agencies and corporations to keep them safe. But a series of recent data leaks should have us questioning just how safe the brave new digital world really is and how security can be improved.

Around mid-December, news reports surfaced that the personal information of hundreds of solar panel owners in Flanders had been briefly accessible to anyone with a login and password to the website of the Flemish energy regulator, VREG.

Just before Christmas, an online data leak at the railway operator NMBS Europe exposed the names, addresses and birthdates of 700,000 international customers.

Two weeks later, the job-search website Jobat involuntarily dumped the salary details of 4,000 users online.

Linda A Thompson
(April 17, 2013)

Hundreds of local names in Offshore Leaks

Antwerp diamond dealers “among most prominent” users of tax havens

The Belgian tax authorities will investigate the cases of any nationals named in the so-called Offshore Leaks – a major journalistic investigation of leaked files dealing with offshore companies and tax havens. Last week an international consortium of 86 magazines and newspapers, including Belgium’s Le Soir, revealed some of the names of approximately 130,000 wealthy individuals and companies accused of using offshore corporations to avoid up to €25 trillion in tax in their 170 respective countries.

No specific names were revealed by Le Soir journalist Alain Lallemand, but there were “hundreds” of Belgians involved, he said. He has been in touch with some of those whose names appear in the documents, and they have admitted involvement. “I think Antwerp diamond traders are among the most prominent names,” on the list, he said.

Alan Hope
(April 10, 2013)

Industry costs second highest in EU

Power and wage expenses are affecting competition, says Febeliec

Major industrial consumers are paying 15 to 20% more for electricity in Belgium than their competitors in neighbouring countries, according to a study carried out by Deloitte on behalf of Febeliec, the Federation of Belgian Industrial Energy Consumers. The competitive disadvantage that results, commented Luc Sterckx, chairman of Febeliec, is “at least as negative as the wages handicap”.

According to the report, the majority of the difference is attributable to high network costs and higher taxes on energy. The association is calling for a cap on the costs major producers have to pay.

Febeliec’s warning was echoed by a number of major consumers, including ArcelorMittal in Ghent, Bayer in Antwerp, Solvay in Brussels and Nyrstar in Overpelt. “High electricity costs in Belgium are a threat to our future,” said Wim Van Gerven, CEO of ArcelorMittal Ghent, whose company pays 6% of its total cost package of €3 billion for energy.

Alan Hope
(April 3, 2013)

Flemish companies reap rewards in Myanmar

Five business contracts have already been signed during economic visit
© Belga

Flemish companies have been able to take advantage of Flanders’ economic diplomacy to make their first business contacts in Myanmar, minister-president Kris Peeters said last week. Peeters was speaking during his second official visit to the country in a year, during which he again met with democracy activist and Nobel Peace Prize-winner Aung San Suu Kyi. Along the way, a number of Flemish companies also on the visit announced important business agreements.

Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, was virtually closed to the West for decades, under the rule of a military junta. As relations with the outside have begun to improve, Western companies are eyeing the Myanmar market for opportunities. Last spring, Peeters led a trade mission to the country, the start of contacts that are now beginning to bear fruit.

Alan Hope
(March 27, 2013)

Working wonders

A Flemish agency helps get people with mental health problems back into the workforce
© Angela Chambers

Getting people with mental health problems into – or back into – the workforce is now a key focus of VDAB, Flanders’ jobs and training agency. This year, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), which regularly analyses data from its member countries, released the review “Mental Health and Work: Belgium”, which found that the relationships VDAB has developed with health professionals and other partners in the programme is “promising” and is setting an example for similar projects to form elsewhere.

Going from working in a high-demand profession to a hospital stay for severe depression can happen to even the most driven, confident employees. Katrien Deboodt of De Haan on the Flemish coast is a well-educated businesswoman. When she became pregnant with her son in 2007, this change, along with stress from her work, caused Deboodt to have an “emotional and psychological crash,” including thoughts of suicide.

Angela Chambers
(March 27, 2013)