The announced round of layoffs of Meta Platforms, Facebook’s parent company, also affects employees in Brussels. The commercial department was dismissed with immediate effect. The sales team in Brussels was dismissed with immediate effect. The news of the layoffs was communicated to the thirty employees of Meta at the beginning of this week. The commercial activities will be transferred to Ireland and the Netherlands. Alexis Lebedoff, who has led Meta’s activities in Belgium since 2012, is also dismissed. The decision is part of the global wave of layoffs that Meta…
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COP27: Bangladesh calls on rich countries to meet $100 billion target -and then surpass it
It’s a target that keeps being missed, the $100 billion a year that the world’s richest countries first pledged 13 years ago to help pay the costs of battling climate change in low-to-middle income nations. Bangladesh, a densely populated country vulnerable to rising sea levels, is at COP27 in Egypt urging the countries that caused most global warming in the first place to finally meet their obligations, writes Political Editor Nick Powell. It was back at COP15, held in Copenhagen in 2009, that world’s most developed countries committed to providing…
Read MoreMediaMarkt will be available in Belgium soon
The online marketplace of MediaMarkt for the Dutch and Belgian market will not be long in coming. At What’s Next in Retail Tech in Bussum, CEO Benelux Remko Rijnders did not mention a concrete date this afternoon, but it could be a matter of weeks. “We have often been asked: why another online marketplace? There is an Amazon and bol.com. only we see that sales are increasingly going to online marketplaces, and we take into account a sixty percent share in a few years.” In many countries, including Germany, MediaMarkt…
Read MoreChicory : a small agricultural niche in a world of crisis
Unknown is unloved: that is sometimes said of chicory, since its production and consumption takes place mainly in Europe. The rest of the world knows almost nothing about it. Yet the chicory sector is one to cherish and fight for. The product has many advantages, but the production process suffers from the energy crisis. The witloofevent par excellence is without a doubt the witloof Biennale. After a successful edition in Etten-leur in the Netherlands, the event could not continue for 4 years due to the corona pandemic. This year it…
Read MoreBelgium will have almost complete 5G coverage by the end of 2025
Orange wants 90 percent of Belgium to have 5G coverage by the end of 2025. For this, however, political decision-making, such as for coverage in the Wallonia subregion, must be well regulated. According to the Belgian operator, 40 percent of Belgium will have 5G coverage by the end of 2023. By the end of 2025, it should be 90 percent. Orange Belgium indicates that the country is still well behind in the field of 5G with other countries in which the originally French operator is active. This must change quickly,…
Read MoreLess than 1% of businesses left Brussels in past decade, says survey
Recent reports have consistently suggested that Brussels will be facing a mass exodus of companies. A recent study by the Brussels Institute of Statistics and Analysis (BISA) shows that this, in fact, has not been the case over the previous decade. In recent months, the news was inundated by tales of businesses getting ready to leave Brussels in their droves. These fears appeared to be materialising when Delhaize and Carrefour moved their headquarters to Flanders, and the chocolate manufacturer Leonidas decided to build their new factory in Wallonia. This argument…
Read MoreWDP is building 150,000 sq.m solar park
The logistics company WDP is constructing a 150,000 square meter solar panel installation with a capacity of 25 megawatt peak (MWp) at a distribution center in the port of Ghent. It will, for the time being, be the largest solar roof in Belgium. In the long term, the plant can generate energy for 20,000 families per year. solar installation in Belgium: 150,000 square meters of panels on one roof. The company will be able to generate 25 megawatts of peak green energy from the summer. That is equivalent to the…
Read MoreFirst Belgian nuclear reactor finally shut down
In Belgium, nuclear reactor Doel 3, near Antwerp, has been permanently shut down. It is the first of the seven Belgian nuclear reactors to finally pull the plug. At 21.31, the reactor was removed from the power grid, the VRT reports. This was done after years of preparation: as early as 2003, the Belgian government decided to phase out the use of nuclear energy, but the timetable for the closure of the seven reactors changed regularly. Doel 3 had been in operation since 1982 and was one of four reactors…
Read MoreCarrefour celebrates the 25th anniversary of ‘Express’ format in Belgium
Carrefour Express, the convenience formula of Carrefour, blows out 25 candles in Belgium. The first store opened its doors as GB Express, but since then the chain has grown beyond 300 branches. In 1997, the first GB Express neighborhood supermarket opened in the Brussels municipality of Sint-Agatha-Berchem. That same year, the opening of a second Express supermarket in the South Station in Brussels accounted for two firsts in one fell swoop: operator Manu Visart became the group’s first ever franchise partner and it was also the first store in a…
Read MorePotato processors report 17 percent fewer yearly output
The potato processing industry in Belgium expects about 17 percent fewer potatoes this season due to the extreme drought of the past few months. Expressing that expectation immediately pushed the free market price to the highest level in weeks: 250 euros per tonne. CEO Christophe Vermeulen of Belgapom tells employees to expect a turbulent potato year. The North-western European Potato Growers (NEPG) reported last week that the potato harvest in northwestern Europe is 7 to 10 percent lower. For our southern neighbors, the organization speaks of a decrease of 20…
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