Background: The seminar was conducted by Export Import Bank of India at Bangalore, on February 12, 2001. The principal objective of this seminar was to educate the participants on the advantages of doing business with Belgium in order to get penetration into the European markets.

Faculty: Mr. Ben De Smit, Director, Investment Promotion for Asia-Pacific Region, Flanders Foreign Investment office, Singapore; Mr. Jayant Nadiger, Trade Commissioner for Flanders in Bangalore and Mr. Dinesh Singh, Dun & Bradstreet Information India (Pvt.) Ltd, Hyderabad, addressed the workshop.

Target Sectors: The seminar was oriented towards targeting the sectors like IT, Pharmaceuticals, engineering goods, and service providers like warehousing, shipping and freight forwarding companies.

Summary of Proceedings: Mr. Jayant Nadiger made a presentation on 'Flanders: Belgium - A Place for Sourcing of Technologies'. In his presentation Mr. Nadiger mentioned that Belgium is a federal country with three regions, viz, Brussels, Flanders and Wallonia. Among these regions, Flanders is the key economic region for Belgium contributing 85 percent of the GDP in Exports. This region is also one of the key economic region in Europe and one of the highest per capita exporter in the world, Mr. Nadiger said. Mr. Nadiger informed the participants on the strengths of industries such as IT, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, bio-technology, plastics, packaging, automobiles, space equipment, metals, engineering, construction, waste management and telecommunications as important sectors of the region and welcomed Indian companies for doing business in those sectors. Mr. Nadiger suggested the participants to source technologies in sectors like manufacture of port handling equipment, logistics and transport equipment, agro-food processing, power plants, textiles, hospital equipment and telecommunications equipment.

Mr. Ben De Smit made a presentation on 'Belgium - An Attractive Destination for Investment in Europe'. In his presentation, Mr. De Smit mentioned that Belgium is strategically located in the heart of Europe and its compact size, its productiveness, adaptability, multilingual work force and its free enterprise economy ensures that the investment in Belgium is the best proposition for companies who would like to expand business in Europe. Mr. De Smit made elaborate presentation covering the economic policy, currency system, legal code, taxes and duties that are applicable for both trade and investment, availability of the industrial infrastructure like power, transport and telecommunications, availability of the financial infrastructure, the labour market and governing rules, availability of real estate, office and industrial premises and statistics on the amount of inward investment that have been attracted by this region in the past.

Mr. Dinesh Singh made a presentation on 'Managing Business Relationship and Risks while Doing Business with Belgium'. In his presentation Mr. Singh covered aspects like exchange regulations, import licensing, trade regulations, credit and payment conditions, customs laws, documentation requirements, marketing, labeling and packaging requirements, laws governing intellectual property rights, etc. Mr. Singh's presentation also covered the risk factors of Belgium and the current D & B grading of risk for Belgium.

The speakers addressed various queries raised by the participants.