January 07, 2021
02:30
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With 99,914 new companies, Belgium does not have to be ashamed of its 2020 bulletin: many creators defied the virus, the Flemish in the lead.
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Contrary to what one might fear, the year 2020 has the time has not come for a brutal deceleration of creations business. The coronavirus, however, had a greater impact in Brussels …
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In Flanders, the candidate entrepreneurs were not afraid of anything since, despite the pandemic crisis, they were more numerous than the previous year to create their business. With 65.261 starters, the annual report of business start-ups is indeed 431 units better than that of 2019, as shown by statistics compiled by the Graydon analysis office for Unizo, the organization of Flemish SMEs. A small increase of 0.66% which makes say to Danny Van Assche, the managing director of the Unizo, that without the Covid-19, we would “undoubtedly have welcomed many more” new companies. “This says a lot about the ‘drive’, the resilience and the willingness to take risks of our candidate entrepreneurs,” he continues. “And on their optimism and confidence in the future as well, despite the current situation.”
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In July and August, the number of starters literally “skyrocketed” (+17 and + 18%) in Flanders.
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In details, it was especially the first confinement that weighed on the trend in the north of the country, with setbacks the number of creations of 39% in April and 22.3% in May. At second confinement, on the other hand, the desire to be an entrepreneur barely weakened in October and November (-6.9 and -3.6%), before returning sharply to positive in December (+ 8.8%). In July and August, the number of starters “soared” (+17 and + 18%), as if the end of the first lockdown had allowed all postponed projects to finally take shape.
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Brussels more affected
In the Brussels Region, the picture is quite different: the name of starters a down 12% compared to 2019, at 11,159 units against 12,687. In Brussels too, the first confinement was expensive, with a fall in creations of 48.7% in April then of 39.2% in May, but the comparison with Flanders stops there. There was no recovery in July-August (-4.7% then + 0.7%), while only the month of September enabled real progress to be recorded (+ 7.3%). The second confinement resulted in very pronounced setbacks again in November (-19.1%) and in December (-18.3%).
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In Brussels, only the month of September enabled real growth to be recorded (+ 7.3%).
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How to explain it? According to Unizo, more than 60% of business creators in Brussels were of foreign nationality in 2019: perhaps the limitations of the possibilities of travel to and from abroad this year they have curbed their momentum. The organization also recalls that it is always necessary to have a certificate of his business management skills in the Brussels Region, while this is no longer necessary in Flanders: it does not exclude that this has led some to move to Flemish Brabant, which would obviously have contributed to the good figures for the north of the country. We can also wonder if Brussels is not traditionally more richly endowed than the other Regions in young shoots in the hospitality sector (hotels, bars and restaurants); this would also explain the more pronounced pullback.
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And Wallonia, we recorded last year 23,494 new businesses. This represents a 5.5% drop pcompared to 2019 (24,864 creations). The strongest months were July, August and September, while creations fell in April and May. In November and December, they fell more slightly.
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At the level of all of Belgium, the entrepreneurs founded in total 99,914 new companies in 2020, down 2.4% from the record figure for 2019 (102,381), but this remains remarkable given the pandemic and the months of closure it has caused in many sectors. The north of the country was responsible for 65.3% of the total creations, Wallonia 23.5% and Brussels 11.2%.
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