2023-09-28 08:24:15
Industrial production in the port area of Antwerp is experiencing its sharpest decline in 40 years, and the volume of production has fallen to the same level as 20 years ago, the employers’ organization Voka warned in a press release on Thursday.
“Large industrial companies are sounding the alarm,” says Voka, who cites as an example the increase in recourse to economic unemployment, especially in chemicals, and the latest “restructuring” announced on Wednesday at European Master Bacht in Bornem ( 16 jobs including certain fixed-term contracts which will not be renewed, Editor’s note).
According to Voka data, the production volume of the 31 largest industrial sites in the port area fell to 55 million tonnes in 2022. “This is a contraction of 12 million tonnes compared to the year record of 2018”, says Luc Luwel boss of Voka Antwerp-Waasland. “This brings us back to the level of the year 2000,” he says, worried that such a drop has not been seen for 40 years.
On the side of the Essenscia sectoral federation, although we recognize that we have seen better days, we do not want to give in to panic. “The production capacity utilization rate at the start of the year was at its lowest level since 1981, but that does not mean the same thing as a decline or fall in production.”
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