What infrastructure will an investor find in Liege?
There are three different types of infrastructure : incubators, relay buildings and industrial sites. Actually, a potential investor willing to approach a new market in Europe can do it in three major steps.
First check if the selected market is indeed in existence. This will lead small and medium-sized businesses, reluctant to invest a lot in a plant, to investigate into the incubators. Secondly, if the business expands and remains longer without making an immediate decision, relay buildings are custom-made for this purpose. The third step will consist in purchasing land or a building to extend and establish activities in the long term. This involves any size company.
Whatever your choice may be, make the most of Liege.
Incubators and relay buildings: rapidity, flexibility, services
The prime objective of incubators and relay buildings is to propose to young and/or foreign companies a building responding to their specific needs. They both consist of an equipped facility rented at a very low price, with shared services requiring no initial investment. They are located in industrial but attractive surroundings as this is a frequent request. Doors can readily be opened for you.
- Incubators
Designed for young local companies and for foreign companies, incubators include workshops of 500 to 1,600 sq.ft. and equipped offices from 200 to 300 sq.ft.. They will benefit from shared services such as meeting rooms, a canteen, choice of logistic services, secretarial offices, security systems and a parking area.
Incubators offer other services such as business planning, translation services, marketing or development units to support young companies and help them to start activities under the best possible conditions.
There are now three incubators in activity.Two more are being built.
- Relay buildings
To the 29 relay buildings already existing, 5 more are being built. Each building features two modules completely fitted and ready to house one or two companies. Each module, with a workshop space from 3,000 to 5,000 sq.ft. and an office space from 360 to 1,000 sq.ft., has been designed with the purpose of offering companies separate facilities and a separate entrance, if required.
They are more and more specialized according to specific activities (agro-food, call centers, motor engineering, etc.).
Incubators are rented over a period from a couple of days to 3 years at the most, renewable for 2 more years. The rented surface depends on the current tenant's needs.
$ 6.25 per sq.ft. a year(average price)
Relay buildings are also rented for a period of 3 years at the most, renewable for 2 more years. The only real condition to gain access to these facilities is to have at least one person employed per 1,000 sq.ft. within 2 years. They can be bought at any time.
One module (workshop + office) : from $ 1,100 to $ 1,400 a month depending on the size of the module.
Industrial sites : buy land at a very attractive price
Industrial sites welcome all types and all sizes of industries. The local economic agency has developed and manages 38 such sites close to transport networks. They have been totally equipped and include all services and accommodation such as water distribution, public lighting, public roads, etc. Some are set aside for specific sectors, i.e. :
- for Research and Development in the scientific park
- for Telecoms in the Teleparc©
- for distribution, especially in the freight village next to the airport
- for motor engineering at the Technopole at Spa-Francorchamps where the
Belgian Grand Prix of Formula 1 takes place each summer.
Land prices vary from $ 28,000 to $ 62,000 per acre depending on the site location. If you compare these figures to prices in other parts of the area, including the Netherlands and Germany, you will quickly come to your own conclusion.
As a foreign company, what can you expect concretely?
Foreign companies have already started their European activities from an incubator or relay buidings. They come from Germany, the Netherlands, the United States, Japan, Italy or Great Britain.
These represent a wide range of activities : plastics, water processing, distribution of eye glasses, computer science, agro-food, etc.
When starting a new activity in a new market, these outside companies find to their advantage the considerable flexibility they can benefit from within this infrastructure in place.
As an example of company investing in a relay buidings or an incubator, let us focus on the American California Design Studio which markets imported frames for glasses. Turnover is around $ 1.9 million and 15 people are employed. It started activities in Liege in 1994 in an incubator located in the scientific park, between high technology and green surroundings. In 1995,as the company was getting larger and needed more space, it decided to move into a relay building a few miles away.
Their next step in Liege could be to leave the current address and move into their own building close to Liege airport.
The company is doing well. Turnover could be doubled by 1997.
About Liege, Alain Verlaine, General manager, says:
"Liege's major assets are its central geographical location, linked to a huge transport network that facilitates the distribution of our products to German, French and British markets. Furthermore, the area possesses the remarkable asset of offering a multilingual personnel to the job market, enabling us to offer top quality after sales service."
