The heterogeneous employment outcomes of first- National Bank of Belgium Limited liability company Working Paper Research RLP Brussels – Company number : 0203.201.340 Registered office : boulevard de Berlaimont 14 July 2020 N° 384 BE - 1000 Brussels www.nbb.be Economic importance of the Belgian maritime and inland ports – Report 2018 by Ilse Rubbrecht and Koen Burggraeve The heterogeneous employment outcomes of first- National Bank of Belgium Limited liability company Working Paper Research RLP Brussels – Company number : 0203.201.340 Registered office : boulevard de Berlaimont 14 July 2020 N° 384 BE - 1000 Brussels www.nbb.be Economic importance of the Belgian maritime and inland ports – Report 2018 by Ilse Rubbrecht and Koen Burggraeve Publisher Pierre Wunsch, Governor of the National Bank of Belgium Statement of purpose The purpose of these Working Papers is to promote the circulation of research results (Research Series) and analytical studies (Documents Series) made within the National Bank of Belgium or presented by external economists in seminars, conferences and conventions organised by the Bank. The aim is therefore to provide a platform for discussion. The opinions expressed are strictly those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bank of Belgium. Orders For orders and information on subscriptions and reductions: National Bank of Belgium, Documentation - Publications Service, boulevard de Berlaimont 14, 1000 Brussels Tel +32 2 221 20 33 - Fax +32 2 21 30 42 The Working Papers are available on the Bank’s website: http://www.nbb.be © National Bank of Belgium, Brussels All rights reserved. Reproduction for educational and non-commercial purposes is permitted provided that the source is acknowledged. ISSN: 1375-680X (print) ISSN: 1784-2476 (online) 2 NBB WORKING PAPER No. 384 – JULY 2020 ABSTRACT This Working Paper provides an extensive overview of the economic importance and development of the Flemish maritime ports, the Liège port complex and the port of Brussels for the period 2013 – 2018 in terms of value added, employment and investment. Each of these ports play a major role in their respective regional economies and in the Belgian economy, not only in terms of industrial activity but also as intermodal centers facilitating the commodity flow. In 2018, Belgian ports generated € 32.1 billion in direct and indirect value added (i.e. 7% of Belgian GDP) and employed 249 612 people as full-time equivalents (FTEs) either directly or indirectly (5.9% of Belgian domestic employment including the self-employed). While direct employment in Belgian ports grew by 1% in 2018, thanks to a significant rise recorded in the branches of the ports themselves, direct value added contracted by 2.9%, compared to the record year 2017. The decline in direct value added was particularly noticeable in the non-maritime branches of the ports of Antwerp and Liège. Direct employment at the Belgian ports increased by 1% in 2018 on the back of a significant rise in the number of jobs registered in the cargo handling sector, part of the maritime cluster. All Flemish ports generated additional jobs. Aside from extra employment creation in cargo handling, also other branches generated supplementary jobs. The pattern of investment is closely linked to projects and therefore highly volatile. Direct investments went up for the third year in a row; to a level of almost € 6 billion in 2018. The increase was mainly explained by investment at the port of Antwerp in the context of a merger operation in the shipping companies branch. Based on the figures of maritime traffic, the Flemish ports can be considered as real bridgeheads for trade with the UK. As the current free access for the UK to the Single Market and for EU member states to the UK will cease to apply once the transition periods ends, the shape of the future trade relationship between the EU and the UK will have an impact on the import and export volumes in terms of tonnage. This chapter will try to shed some light on the macroeconomic impact of Brexit on the Belgian economy as a whole. The initially planned publication of this study coincided with the global outbreak of the COVID-19 crisis. Therefore, a brief chapter is devoted to the economic impact of the corona virus on the Belgian ports, more precisely on the port of Antwerp. This report is available for download at the following address http://www.nbb.be. Key words: Belgian ports, microeconomic data, direct effects, indirect effects, input-output table, employment, value added, investment JEL classification: C13, C43, C67, C81, J21, J49, L91, L92, R11, R15 and R41. NBB WORKING PAPER No. 384 – JULY 2020 3 Authors Ilse Rubbrecht, National Bank of Belgium, Boulevard de Berlaimont 14, 1000 Brussels, Belgium, e-mail: [email protected] Koen Burggraeve, National Bank of Belgium, Boulevard de Berlaimont 14, 1000 Brussels, Belgium, e-mail: [email protected] This paper was compiled with the technical support and expertise of Elena Gueli and Marc Van Kerckhoven. The authors would like to express their gratitude for their painstaking work on putting together the port population, preparation of tables and graphs and their thorough proofreading of the paper. Thanks to close collaboration with the Port Authority of Antwerp and Alfaport Voka, survey results on the impact of COVID-19 could be collected at short notice. Colleagues from the Microeconomic Information Department deserve thanks for their assistance and support as well as colleagues from the National and Regional Accounts Service for their input. Special thanks to François Coppens for the indirect effect calculation methods. The authors thank also Didier Muraille, Head of the Microeconomic Information Department at the NBB, Hugues Famerée, Head of the Economics and Research Department at the NBB, Saskia Vennix from the Microeconomic Information Department at the NBB and Jean-Pierre Merckx of the Flemish Port Commission for their support and their comments on this paper. Research results and conclusions expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bank of Belgium or any other institution to which the authors are affiliated. All remaining errors are ours. 4 NBB WORKING PAPER No. 384 – JULY 2020 Contents Abstract ............................................................................................................................................. 3 Foreword ........................................................................................................................................... 6 Introduction ....................................................................................................................................... 7 Objectives of the study and comments on the methodology ......................................................... 7 1 ECONOMIC IMPORTANCE OF THE BELGIAN PORTS......................................................... 10 1.1 National and international economic context ............................................................................ 10 1.2 Traffic in the Belgian ports ....................................................................................................... 11 1.3 Competitive position of the Belgian ports ................................................................................. 12 1.4 Value added at the Belgian ports ............................................................................................. 15 1.6 Employment at the Belgian ports ............................................................................................. 18 1.7 Investment in the Belgian ports ............................................................................................... 20 1.8 Financial ratios in the Belgian ports ......................................................................................... 22 1.9 Relative importance of the components of value added ........................................................... 28 2 ANALYSIS BY PORT ............................................................................................................. 30 2.1 Port of Antwerp ....................................................................................................................... 30 2.2 North Sea Port Flanders .......................................................................................................... 38 2.3 Port of Zeebrugge ................................................................................................................... 44 2.4 Port of Ostend ......................................................................................................................... 52 2.5 Liège port complex .................................................................................................................. 59 2.6 Port of Brussels ....................................................................................................................... 65 3 IMPACT OF BREXIT ON BELGIAN ECONOMY ..................................................................... 71 3.1 Introduction ............................................................................................................................. 71 3.2 Political context ....................................................................................................................... 71 3.3 The macroeconomic consequences of a soft and a hard Brexit scenario.................................. 75 4 IMPACT OF COVID-19 ..........................................................................................................