More Belgian businesses going bust

14 June 2004

BRUSSELS – More than 2,000 businesses filed for bankruptcy in Belgium in the past three months, up 9.7 percent from the same period last year.

During the month of May alone, some 641 businesses went bust, a 1.1 percent increase over May 2003, the latest figures released by the National Statistics Office also show.

The total number of bankruptcies over the past three months was 2,141.

Broken down by sector, business failures among catering companies were up 18.1 percent over the past three months compared to the same period last year, construction company bankruptcies rose 14.4% and retail company bankruptcies were up 3.7 percent.

In Dutch-speaking Flanders, the number of businesses that went bust over the past three months rose 13.1 percent over the past three months from the same period in 2003, compared to a 7.4 percent increase for the French-speaking Walloon region and a 3.3 percent rise in Brussels.

Subject : Belgian news