Belgium

The Kingdom of Belgium shares its borders with France, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. It is about the size of Maryland and covers an area of 30,528 sq. kilometers. Belgium’s total population is 10.4 million and is growing at about 0.05% with 97% living in urban areas. The official languages are Dutch (60%), French (40%) and German (less than 1%). The capital city of Brussels has a population of 1.03 million and is legally bilingual (French, Dutch). The people are governed by a federal parliamentary democracy under a constitutional monarch and are predominantly Roman Catholic. Belgium was one of the six founding members of the European Union and adopted the Euro as currency in 1999.

About 75 percent of Belgium’s trade is with other European Union countries and other trade partner’s include the United States and China. Its primary imports are machinery and equipment, chemical products, diamonds, pharmaceuticals, and oil products. Exports consist of transportation equipment, diamonds, and metals and metal products. Belgium’s GDP (Purchasing Power Parity) is $427.2 billion and has been decreasing at a rate of 0.2% with an inflation rate of 2.4%. Belgium ranked 22nd out of 185 countries in the World Bank Group’s Ease of Doing Business Ranking.

Doing Business in Belgium (2013)Click the links below for articles with more information on Franchising in Belgium

Reform of European Union Rules on Distribution (2010)

European Commission's New Block Exemption Rules Enter Into Force June 1 (2010)

* CPI Score is published by Transparency International and relates to the perceptions of the degree of corruption as seen by business people and country analysts and ranges between 100 (highly clean) and 0 (highly corrupt).

**Ease of Doing Business Ranking is determined by the World Bank Group and is ranked out of a possible 185 countries. www.doingbusiness.org

Most recent statistics have been taken from the CIA World Factbook unless noted otherwise.

International Franchising Opportunities

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