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VLANDEEREN
GEOGRAPHY AND DEMOGRAPHY
The region, with its 6.0 million inhabitants (60% of the Belgian population), covers an area of 13,522 km², and lies in one of the most densely populated areas of Western Europe, with 434 inhabitants per km². Flanders borders onto the North Sea, and is situated between The Netherlands and France. Flanders is the northern part of Belgium.
INFRASTRUCTURE
Flanders has an excellent transport network. Next to a vast motorway and railway network, Flanders has miles of navigable waterways. Without the river Scheldt for example, the port of Antwerp would never be what it is today. The port possesses one of the biggest docklands of Europe. Next to the port of Antwerp, the seaport of Zeebrugge is also of major economic importance.

Brussels International Airport at Zaventem ensures Flanders is easily accessible for the traveller. Furthermore, Flanders also has regional airports, for example those at Deurne, near Antwerp and Oostende. The most important cities of Europe - London, Paris, Rotterdam, Amsterdam, Köln, Bonn and Luxembourg - are all situated within a radius of 300 km around Flanders' capital Brussels.

ECONOMY
Flanders is a key economic region within Europe. It owes this position to its central location in the middle of the Western European industrial area. The economy of Flanders is characterised by its high productivity. It produces high quality products at the right price. Those products are mostly exported to the international market. An important advantage is the high level of education and multilingualism among the professional population. What's more, Flanders has an extensive system of social consultation at its disposal. Gross Regional Product (GRP) at current market prices equals 160,1 billion € (2004). The backbone of Flanders' economic structure is the SME.

On a total of about 417.000 companies, over 99% have less than 250 employees, 89% count less than 10 employees. Large companies (less than 0,5%) are usually part of a multinational group. The industrial history of Flanders can be found in the textile industry, back in the Middle Ages. Today, about 70% of Flemish employment is generated in one of the following sectors : Chemicals/Pharmaceuticals, Metal products & machines, Electrotechnics, Food products and Textiles.

Investments in new technology and re-orientation towards more favourable "niche markets" are restoring confidence in these more traditional sectors. At the same time, typical "high-tech" technologies such as biotechnology and information technology (IT) are gradually gaining importance. Flanders also maintains a strong position in the transport and communication sector.

LABOUR MARKET
Working age (18-64) population (1/1/2005) = 3.763.607 this is 62.3% of the overall population. Current unemployment rate (feb 2005) equals 8.7% (Men 7.2% Women 10.4%). The number of people employed in agricultural/industry/service sector are (in 1000) 22/538/1.401 respectively. This leads to the following distribution : agricultural 1%, industry 27% and services 72 %.
RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT
Flanders works continuously at maintaining an innovative information economy. Every year, Flemish universities turn out qualified professionals and first-rate researchers. The top Flemish priority is an on-going co-operation between university centres, the government and trade and industry. Annual budget: for innovation is 200 million euro. 60 million for R&D-projects; 10 million for Innovation projects SMEs; 30 million for Strategic Basic Research; 7 million for HEI; 30 million for Flemish Innovation; Cooperation Networks Clients; 150 innovative enterprises / year; 500 SME projects / year; Network of intermediairies : 200 advisors in the field. The region spends around 2.55% of its GDP in research and development, divided into: 0.6% to public sector, 0.2% government, 0.4% university and 1.9% private sector.
DATA RELATED TO REGIONAL STRUCTURAL FUNDS MECHANISMS
In Flanders, the regions covered by Objective 2 comprise: part of three districts in the province of Limburg, part of the Kempen area in the province of Antwerp, certain disadvantaged neighbourhoods in the cities of Antwerp and Ghent, the coastal area (Kustgebied) in West Flanders and two rural areas in West and East Flanders (Westhoek and Meetjesland). The four programmes cover an area with a population of 1.2 million, i.e. around 20% of the inhabitants of the Flemish Region.
REGIONAL PROGRAMME OF INNOVATIVE ACTIONS (RPIA)
The European Commission provided Euro 3 million for a regional programme of innovative actions ' Sustainable Management and Planning of Industrial Estates' in Vlaanderen. During the period 2003-2004, the European funding attracted Euro 2.78 million in further investment from the public sector and Euro 0.23 million from the private sector creating total resources of Euro 6 million.

The programme accelerated the evolution towards 'sustainable' industrial estates. It paid particular attention to a more rational and efficient use of existing and new industrial zones. The programme enable Vlaanderen to finance a number of pilot projects with which to inspire future advances in the management and development of industrial estates.

The programme objective was to research and analyse the preconditions for the management of sustainable industrial estates on the one hand and to realise pilot projects for the development of (aspects of) sustainable industrial estates on the other. To this end, three main lines of action were carried out:

  • Research into the preconditions for sustainable management of industrial estates. (Research into the setting up of optimum long-term management of industrial estates and the development of sustainable projects).
  • The realisation of pilot projects for sustainable industrial estates. (Concrete development of actions and projects on industrial estates to achieve more 'sustainable' industrial estates. This may involve actions on existing industrial estates as well as actions on industrial estates to be developed).

  • Evaluation, monitoring and dissemination of the actions taken. (Evaluation of the actions taken and making the results known to managers and to other regions.)