Chinese interest in European Marketing Center grows

The Chinese Aigo Entrepreneurs Alliance AEA has set up a permanent office at the Antwerp Ring Centre. AEA, a joint initiative of 500 Chinese export companies led by Feng Jun, founder and chairman of Aigo, one of the biggest Chinese manufacturers of products such as digital cameras, has been seeking a suitable base in Europe for quite some time. Choosing the Antwerp Ring Center as their permanent base and not the Tour & Taxis complex in Brussels, openly confirms the alliance’s preference for the EMC, the European Marketing Center along the A12 expressway in Willebroek owned by real estate developer Guido Bernaerts, who sees these Chinese exporters as the development drivers of his wholesale centre EMC. This complex with 200.000 m² office space, will obviously accommodate a China Brand Center and construction is set to start immediately after the building permit for the EMC will be issued. The permit is expected in the days to come. From their Ring Center office in Antwerp, AEA’s Xiaotung Hou will guide exporters moving into the EMC and China Brand Center. When Aigo visited Belgium in March this year with a delegation of 63 Chinese business leaders on invitation of Group Beraerts, Flemish Prime Minister Kris Peeters CD&V received them with great respect. As Flanders Investment & Trade had in fact been working on the deal since 2009, the delegates were welcomed amid considerable interest from the Belgian and Chinese press. Brussels and Wallonia did their best to sway the delegation to choose Brussels as their destination, offering to temporarily accommodate businesses at the Tour & Taxis complex, but there was no concrete project on their side. Despite considerable interest, the eventual arrival of AEA members was hampered by administrative red tape. The first Chinese businesses will nevertheless be able to start up in Antwerp before summer. In addition to the space offered by Group Bernaerts, businesses will also enjoy access to three support programmes. According to Guido Bernaerts, Hinim, the biggest Chinese manufacturer of solar panels and equipment empowered by solar energy, has already indicated plans to establish their European head office at Bernaerts. The latter has meanwhile also signed six contracts with other organisations that are similar to AEA and represent thousands of businesses. The Chinese are not only interested in promoting their exports via the EMC and China Brand Center. According to Bernaerts, “AEA also represents major Chinese investors keen to buy shares in European businesses”. Within the next few weeks he will also receive seven electronics companies that are interested in starting up a production line in the neighbourhood of the China Brand Center.