La Belgique : une économie sous influence étrangère ?
This article tries to give a review of the degree of the country’s economic openness by combining recent evolution data on Belgian foreign trade with information on foreign investments, and by defining buyouts and holding of shares in some Belgian companies by foreign groups. The three fields show s...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Société Royale Belge de Géographie and the Belgian National Committee of Geography
2017-09-01
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| Series: | Belgeo |
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| Online Access: | http://journals.openedition.org/belgeo/20356 |
| Summary: | This article tries to give a review of the degree of the country’s economic openness by combining recent evolution data on Belgian foreign trade with information on foreign investments, and by defining buyouts and holding of shares in some Belgian companies by foreign groups. The three fields show specific evolutions. Although Belgium - despite its small territory - is still well-ranked in the world’s top export countries, and has still a favorable trade balance, it has lost a bit of its attractiveness in terms of foreign investment’s reception, particularly regarding employment, because investments, which mostly proceed from the third sector, create considerably less direct jobs than ten years ago. As for buyouts and holding of shares, they reflect a real globalization of the economic world with its positive consequences for the bought-out companies (greater international integration) but also with its hugest vulnerabilities, the strategic decisions being less and less controlled by the Belgian establishment. |
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| ISSN: | 1377-2368 2294-9135 |