2023-08-24 05:59:00
It is December 5, 2018. Luc Partoune, then CEO of Liège airport, the Walloon Region and the Belgian federal government sign a historic agreement with the Chinese giant Alibaba. The goal ? Make the Walloon airport the European hub of the e-commerce platform. We are talking about the creation of 900 direct jobs and many more indirect ones. The political world is pleased: this Chinese arrival will also be favorable to Walloon SMEs which will be able to export more easily to the huge Chinese market, it is said at the time. For Alibaba, Bierset has the advantage of being very well located and allowing night flights. “Other European countries, such as the Netherlands, were interested, but they quickly realized that the relationship with the Chinese was completely unbalanced and withdrew their candidacy”, analyzes Jonathan Holslag, professor of international politics at the VUB . In Belgium, we were in a context of euphoria and political naivety which characterized the period during which Charles Michel (MR) was Prime Minister. It was the time when we wanted to create jobs at all costs.”
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“The arrival of Alibaba is in total contradiction with the commitments of our politicians to redeploy a local, green and circular economy in Belgium and Wallonia.”
“Alibaba in Liège is a failure”
The professor affirms it bluntly, almost five years later, Alibaba in Liège is “a failure”. In addition to being an “ecological disaster”, the project would also harm our economy, according to a study published on its blog. The “tsunami” (sic) of “cheap” products from China would thus do a lot of harm to our industrial fabric, “victim of this unfair competition”. The trade imbalance between Belgium and China is growing, he said. .Over the past three years, Belgian air exports have decreased and resulted in a loss of 60 million euros and at the same time Chinese exports to our territory have increased by 600 million euros. This arrival of the Chinese is also in total contradiction with the commitments of our politicians to redeploy a local, green and circular economy in Belgium and Wallonia”. Moreover, according to Mr. Holslag, Alibaba would not have kept its commitments to help the Belgian companies to export to China.” With this in mind, the Chinese had promised the creation of an office in Belgium to promote products made in Belgium. We still don’t see anything. Only a few companies like JBC or Colruyt, which sold its Cara Pils via Alibaba in China, and the big pharmaceutical groups took advantage of this deal”.
Charles Michel assumes “without the slightest naivety” his choice to have attracted Alibaba to Liège
“Economically we cannot survive”
In the meantime, Cainaio, the logistics arm of Alibaba, has deployed, with the inauguration of its first warehouse, with a size of 30,000 m2 in November 2021. Others will follow. The machine is launched. “Legally, it’s going to be very complicated to get out of this case, continues the VUB professor. We are hostage to a situation that we created ourselves. But it’s the same thing at the port of Zeebrugge where the balance of trade is also completely unfavorable for other reasons, Do we want to become a country that only offers jobs in logistics? Economically, we cannot survive like this. It is still very important to be an open country. to the rest of the world, to be a gateway to Europe. But we must be able to do this by imposing more balanced competition and finding an innovative industry.”
Who is Joseph Tsai, the new boss of e-commerce giant Alibaba?
“A large quantity of counterfeits, even dangerous products”
The other major criticism of Mr. Holslag comes from the problem of controlling these packages from China. “Alibaba explains that they use artificial intelligence to detect counterfeits sold on its platform. But in reality, these checks are almost non-existent: there are a large number of counterfeits, even products dangerous to health that do not respect European standards that are sold through Alibaba”. Once on Belgian soil, customs officers would be “overwhelmed” by this quantity of parcels transiting through the airport. The volume operated by Alibaba in Liège has increased from 385,000 parcels in 2017 to 650 million in 2021, according to the professor’s study. “Less than a fifth of the goods coming from China is checked. Some Chinese companies are very clever at passing counterfeits and avoiding the taxes to be paid. Mobile phones are sometimes found in a package mentioning lighters. Customs officers m ‘explained that some Chinese traders were better organized and inventive than the drug traffickers”.
“Our neighbors are starting to worry”
Currently, 300 customs officers work at Liège airport. According to the professor, it would take 1000, more than three times more, to be able to carry out checks in Bierset. “It is not feasible for our government and it would be an additional expense for the Belgian taxpayer”. According to Mr. Holslag, this situation is beginning to worry our neighbours. I had contacts with the French customs services. They say that Liège is the black hole for Chinese contraband in Europe. It is a very clear judgment. This shows that our country does not take responsibility for this influx of Chinese goods. The European authorities are starting to look at this closely too”.
Amazon, Alibaba, bol.com… does e-commerce really benefit the Belgian economy?
“More and more aggressive companies”
Finally, still according to the professor, it would be a mistake to think that Alibaba is a private company like any other. “Officially, it’s not a state-owned company. But in fact it’s run by the Chinese government, which uses it as a front to sell Chinese goods around the world, whatever the cost. The complicated economic situation in China only accentuates this need. Deprived of a moribund Chinese internal market, many Chinese SMEs would be ready to do anything to export their products, via Alibaba. “It’s a matter of life or death for them. They are more and more aggressive.” According to Jonathan Holslag, our political decision-makers would do well to draw inspiration from… China. “It may seem paradoxical, but China has a real strategic vision of its economy. In Belgium, we have the impression that we only see the short term, with a mentality “to take what there is to take.” We must be able to see further and our policies must be less naive”.
This interview provoked reactions from Charles Michel, from the Cainiao group, the logistics arm of Alibaba present in Bierset and from Liège airport.
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