The economy is coming back to life as demonstrated by Wallonia companies' order books. And we can congratulate ourselves that during the period of this crisis, we maintained actions to promote visibility and remained particularly vigilant with regard to opportunities: we were on the ground ready for the recovery.

Our main and obvious asset is our geographical location which is proving of particular interest to logistics – one of the five Wallonia government's competitiveness centres. According to a study recently carried out by Cushman and Wakefield, all of Wallonia's provinces come in Europe's top 10 most significant regions logistically speaking (installation of a distribution centre ...). On the podium we find Liège on the top step and Hainaut on the third, separated by Belgian Limburg. And the future is rosy for our region because in the longer term, Hainaut should move up to top position.

As for our institution's actions, let's demonstrate critical awareness. With the development of a business intelligence approach, Awex's support for foreign investment is particularly effective once potential investment becomes apparent. The red carpet is rolled out in response to clients' needs, and with maximum effectiveness and satisfaction ... During the past year, 104 foreign investment projects came to fruition in the Wallonia region. Such investments came to a total amount of €620 million and led to the creation of 1,801 direct jobs.

By way of comparison, in 2008, 122 foreign investment projects were successfully completed on Wallonia territory, with a total amount in the region of €776 million, and the creation of 2,543 direct jobs into the bargain. These figures comprise the cumulative results of work done by Awex and applications processed by the Wallonia "Economy" Public Service. Awex's share respectively comes to over 100 applications processed (71 of which were successful), 1,562 jobs generated and €489 million invested.

Although hit hard by the crisis, 2009 figures among the decade's four best years both from the point of view of the amount of money invested as well as direct jobs generated by these investments. This leads us to view 2010 with optimism ...

A downside however: Wallonia suffers from an image deficit. We are assumed to lag behind the country's other regions, in particular Flanders. A discrepancy from the past, this outdated impression persists while economic indicators show the opposite. Hence the importance of continuing and strengthening our international visibility campaign. This will be our focus for the coming year...