By Karen E. Thuermer, AJOTThere’s a battle going on in Northern Europe between certain locations to become Europe’s premier logistics location. Vying for the position is the Netherlands, Nord Pas de Calais (Northern France), and Belgium’s two regions of Flanders and Wallonia. This AJOT reporter has toured all of these locations in depth, and most recently, Wallonia, in mid November.
With a height difference of 240 feet between the upstream and downstream reaches, the Strepy-Thieu boat lift in Le Roeulx, Hainaut, Wallonia, is the tallest boat lift in the world, and will remain so until the Three Gorges dam boat lift in China is completed. (Photo by Karen E. Thuermer)
While Wallonia often goes unmentioned in North America when speaking about logistics in Europe (for those who do not know it, it’s the French-speaking region of Belgium), the Wallonia Export and Investment Agency (AWEX) maintains that the region will become one of Europe’s most attractive logistics hubs in 2020. This claim is reinforced by a recent study by commercial real estate firm Cushman & Wakefield, which places Belgium, and specifically Wallonia, at the top of its list. Belgium, itself, fared well in the World Bank’s 2012 Logistics Performance Index, where it ranks seventh. Helping Wallonia is the fact it sits in the middle of what is termed the “blue banana” – a phrase coined by Frenchman Roger Brunet in 1989 to describe the economic backbone of the European Union. The term was inspired by satellite pictures showing a glowing blue banana-shaped conglomeration from London to Italy via Belgium, Frankfurt, Munich and Paris. Over 56 million consumers within a 155-mile radius are accessible from Wallonia. Over 60 percent of Europe’s purchasing power is within 310-mile radius. But the region is taking concerted efforts to achieve its place among European logistics offerings. AWEX officials contend that their region offers multiple advantages. Water Access With the exception of landlocked Wallonia, all of the mentioned locations offer a valuable asset: a major seaport. Lacking this asset, Wallonia’s claim is that its Liege Port Authority offers inland port access that is ranked No. 1 for Belgium and No. 3 for Europe. In fact, the Liege Port Authority, which manages 32 ports located along the Meuse River and the Albert Canal in Liege Province, has direct links with major European seaports of Northwest Europe. Antwerp is 14 navigation hours from Liege’s inland ports; Rotterdam, 24 hours; Dunkirk, 48 hours, and Zeebrugge, 24 hours. The land mass of the region’s port areas stretches across much of Wallonia. In a presentation by the Liege Port Authority, Helene Thiebaut, spokesperson, pointed out that authority’s 32 ports encompass 914 acres, with the largest being Monsin – a 247-acre port in the municipality of Liege. Much of the traffic is via barge. Top commodities are building materials (40 percent); oil (20 percent), and coal (16 percent). A benefit for some of these commodities, such as paper, is the Port Authority’s covered trimodal dock, a facility rare in Europe, It allows for the handling of materials in any weather conditions. In addition, the Port Authority operates the Strépy-Thieu boat lift, which lies on a branch of the Canal du Centre in the municipality of Le Roeulx, Hainaut. With a height difference of 240 feet between the upstream and downstream reaches, it is the tallest boat lift in the world. Over the last five to six years the Leige Port Authority has seen an uptick in containers business via short-sea shipping that offers direct shipment to the United Kingdom, Ireland, Scandinavia, and Russia. In 2011, the container business at the Liege Port Authority weighed in at 30,000 TEUs. “Containers represent only 2 percent of the commerce at the Port Authority, however,” Thiebaut revealed. Among the top shippers shipping via container are Nike and SP