In a few words, could you introduce AWEX and its core activities?
AWEX – the Wallonia Export & Investment Agency – is the public institution responsible for foreign trade and foreign direct investment (FDI) attraction for the Walloon region in Belgium. Our dual mission is clearly outlined in our 2026-2029 strategic roadmap: to stimulate and support the internationalization of Walloon businesses, and to attract and anchor foreign investors who create sustainable value in Wallonia.
Our vision is to act as a catalyst for Wallonia’s international growth, serving a region that is more competitive, innovative, attractive, and globally recognized. We operate with high impact and efficiency by leveraging the entire Walloon economic and scientific ecosystem.
Practically speaking, we operate through a headquarters in Brussels, regional centers located in every Walloon province, and most importantly, an international network of Trade and Investment Counselors covering about a hundred priority markets. This extensive network allows us to provide highly tailored support to every company: market intelligence, prospecting, warm introductions, trade shows and economic missions, as well as support for investments and technological partnerships.
For foreign investors, our teams manage the entire journey: identifying industrial and commercial real estate, connecting them to our R&D ecosystem and competitive clusters, unlocking financial incentives, providing administrative support (permits, visas, taxes), and offering post-investment follow-up – all entirely free of charge.
What have been the major milestones in AWEX’s international development?
AWEX, as we know it today, was born in 2004 from the merger of the Walloon Export Agency and the Office for Foreign Investors (OFI). This consolidation allowed us to offer a unified “export + investment” one-stop shop that perfectly aligns with the real needs of businesses.
A new milestone was reached in 2024 with a deeper operational integration of our “export” and “invest” branches. This came alongside a profound internal transformation: structuring into industry-specific hubs, stepping up our FDI prospecting efforts, overhauling our international network, and professionalizing a genuine performance-driven culture (KPIs, evaluation committees).
Wallonia’s Internationalization Summit laid the groundwork for a 2026-2029 strategic roadmap that sets our overarching goals. This roadmap is backed by ambitious impact metrics: Walloon export growth outpacing the average of our three neighboring countries over three years, a 50% annual conversion rate on investment leads, a 5% to 10% annual growth in jobs created and capital invested, and an improvement in Wallonia’s ranking in benchmark global indices (fDi Intelligence / Financial Times, European Cities and Regions of the Future).
What international corporate success stories make you the proudest and why?
The flagship project I have to mention is Alibaba / Cainiao at Liège Airport, announced in December 2018. The Chinese giant chose Liège as its primary European logistics hub, with an initial investment of €75 million, a total envelope that could reach €300 million, a 2.3-million-square-foot (220,000 m²) lease on the airport grounds, and roughly 900 direct jobs and over 2,000 indirect jobs created in the process. Liège Airport is now on track to join the top 3 European cargo hubs – it is already the go-to hub for the WHO, WFP, UNICEF, USAID, and numerous NGOs, while major pharmaceutical labs (J&J, GSK, Baxter) use it for their pharma logistics.
What stood out to me most in this deal was the collective mobilization: AWEX, Liège Airport, the Walloon Region, federal authorities, innovation clusters, and private players worked in lockstep within the broader framework of the eWTP (Electronic World Trade Platform) initiative, making Belgium the first European country to join it. Beyond the sheer scale of the project, it illustrates what AWEX does best: turning an opportunity into lasting impact for the region.
What are the most requested services and support from international companies planning a direct investment in the Belgian market?
Above all, international investors are looking for “end-to-end” support that is both free and confidential, designed to de-risk their decision-making and accelerate their time-to-market. The most frequent requests involve:
Market Intelligence: Analyzing the Belgian and European markets, and mapping competitors, suppliers, clients, R&D centers, and available talent in Wallonia.
Business Development: Introductions to our network of clients and strategic partners, participation in industry events, and growth support in a stable, centrally located European country.
Site Selection: Industrial plots, existing facilities, science parks, data centers, and labs. Today, Wallonia offers over 450 business parks and more than 30,000 acres (12,000 hectares) of usable land.
Ecosystem Access: World-class universities, accredited research centers, and competitive clusters (BioWin, MecaTech, Skywin, Logistics in Wallonia, Wagralim, GreenWin). We have 2,300 companies in biotech/pharma, 14,000 in logistics, 200 in aerospace, 5,500 in chemicals/manufacturing, and nearly 9,000 in the food industry.
Financial Incentives: CAPEX and recruitment subsidies, a highly competitive IP (Intellectual Property) tax regime, partial payroll tax exemptions for researchers, and access to European funding.
Soft Landing: Visas and work permits, family relocation assistance, international schools, and banking and legal services.
Our core value proposition is to anchor the investor at the crossroads of major European capitals (London, Paris, Berlin, Amsterdam) – all reachable in under three hours – with direct access to Europe’s top two ports (Rotterdam, Antwerp) and four of the top ten European airports within an hour’s drive.
What are the main challenges international companies must prepare for before setting up in Belgium, and how do you help overcome them?
To be perfectly candid, Belgium is a high-value-added country, but it comes with specificities that must be anticipated:
A consensus-driven, multi-layered business culture: Between the federal government, regions, communities, provinces, and municipalities, things can get complex. AWEX acts as an institutional “navigator” to guide investors to the right stakeholder at the right time.
Real administrative complexity: Environmental permits, zoning laws, and taxation. To address this, our roadmap includes a “fast-track” process spearheaded by a select Business Committee (AWEX, Wallonie Entreprendre, regional ministries) and inter-agency Invest task forces that bring together local municipalities and workforce agencies (like Forem).
The availability of large industrial plots: This is a tight market, just like everywhere else in Europe. Our Account Managers conduct active “farming” with already established companies to identify investment bottlenecks and report them bi-annually to the Board of Directors and the overseeing Minister.
Labor costs and payroll taxes: You have to know how to leverage structural offsets (R&D incentives, employment subsidies, targeted tax exemptions), which completely transform the economic equation.
Multilingualism and cross-cultural dynamics: This is a massive asset, provided you are properly briefed beforehand.
Our added value lies precisely in turning these potential frictions into accelerators: through anticipation, intermediation, rallying the right public and private partners, and the gradual rollout of AI tools in our investment pipeline management.
If you had three pieces of advice for a company looking to expand into Belgium, what would they be?
First advice: Think long-term. Wallonia is not the most competitive destination when it comes to short-term fixed costs. Its value proposition is built on political and social stability, a world-class innovation ecosystem, and a highly skilled, multilingual workforce – over 40% of our young graduates are in STEM, 46% of our engineers are women, and Belgium ranks in the Top 5 most productive countries in the OECD and the Top 5 of the EU Innovation Scoreboard.
Second advice: Tap into the ecosystem early. Belgium runs on networks. Embedding yourself in an innovation hub, a university, or an industry cluster in your very first months will shave two to three years off a standard learning curve. It’s worth noting that more than one patent is filed every hour in Belgium.
Third advice: Outsource regulatory, real estate, and tax matters to specialists from day one. Our available incentives are among the best in Europe, but they only reach their full potential when a project is properly structured upfront – which our AWEX teams do free of charge, working closely with the investor’s own legal and financial advisors.
In what capacity would you see a partner like Altios further supporting your team and international activities?
Our 2026-2029 roadmap explicitly plans to structure and professionalize our FDI operations, aiming to cut external consulting costs by 75% by 2029 by bringing FDI prospecting skills in-house across our network. Within this framework, I see three very concrete avenues for cooperation with Altios:
Turning leads into qualified leads: Leveraging Altios’ deep industry and geographic reach (across 25 markets) to identify and pre-qualify companies that are genuinely in a phase of global expansion, before they are snatched up by competing European destinations.
Bringing these prospects to Wallonia: Co-creating thematic “discovery tours” (life sciences, defense, aerospace, greentech, logistics, food & beverage) to support the goal of 100 Account Manager visits per year outlined in our roadmap.
Boosting the efficiency of our local network prospectors: Sharing methodologies, tools, and data, and planning joint initiatives in target markets where Altios and AWEX share converging interests. This aligns perfectly with our goal of ensuring 70% of investment projects fall within our region’s priority sectors.
In short, an Altios-AWEX partnership can act as a true force multiplier: more qualified leads, more on-the-ground visits, and ultimately, more final investment decisions landing in Wallonia. This is exactly the kind of cooperation we aim to scale up as we look toward 2026-2029.
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