Three months of free office space, complimentary tax advice and help finding a local workforce. Those are some of the perks officials from Brussels, Belgium are offering Connecticut companies to establish a presence in their region.
The incentives were outlined as part of a sales pitch Brussels economic development officials made last week in Hartford to Connecticut businesses and trade officials.
Katerina Sokolova, a representative of the Brussels Enterprise Agency, an authority in Belgium that aims to attract new businesses, spoke as part of an effort to strengthen her region’s economic ties with Connecticut.
Her sales pitch wasn’t about Connecticut companies relocating to Brussels, but rather establishing a foothold there to generate more European sales opportunities.
“Having local companies with international operations benefits the state,” Sokolova said. “It raises the state’s profile and leverages companies to do business internationally and brings them to your region.”
Dana Bucin, a lawyer with Updike, Kelly & Spellacy, which sponsored the event, has been pushing Connecticut businesses to expand into overseas markets.
One of the many reasons businesses are hesitant, Bucin said, is because they fear the unknown including foreign legal and regulatory requirements and language barriers.
But Bucin said that is no longer an excuse because there is help for Connecticut businesses looking to tap foreign markets. Updike, Kelly & Spellacy, for example, specializes in international business transactions and has a network of international law firms that it works with to help companies get expert legal advice in the country they are potentially seeking to expand in.
Connecticut companies would benefit from overseas expansion because it gives them access to broader markets and raises their profile as an international company, Bucin said. It also helps to diversify their business to hedge against regional downturns.
“It’s a two-way street,” Bucin said. “If we open this channel of conversation, what goes there will come back. Connecticut will get interest from the Belgium market.”
From an industry perspective, Belgium is comparable to Connecticut because both are centers of high-tech industries and precision manufacturing, populated with highly educated and productive workforces, said Laura Jaworski, who works in the international division of the state Department of Economic and Community Development.
“Connecticut and Belgium’s compatibility extends in particular to biotechnology, life sciences, R&D and renewable energy,” Jaworski said.
Jaworski concentrates on helping Connecticut businesses boost sales through exports and she said having companies establish a sales office in another country like Belgium is one way to do that.
In 2009, Belgium was the No. 12 destination for Connecticut commodity exports, totaling over $235 million. The top export commodities were medical devices, industrial machinery and aircraft and spacecraft parts.
With an increasingly global economy, countries are getting more competitive in trying to land foreign businesses.
As part of her sales pitch, Sokolova said Brussels has one-third of the real estate costs of London. The country also offers a diverse, multilingual workforce, with three national languages — French, Dutch and German — while English is spoken nearly everywhere. Brussels is also the capital of Europe and home to the key political and decision-making institutions of the European Union, including the European Parliament and Council of Ministers.
The Brussels Enterprise Agency also offers a three-month contract for free office space that includes fully furnished space, one-to-three work stations, reception services, internet, phone, fax, and conference rooms.
Sokolova said the offer allows companies to sample the country to see if it is the right place for them to do business.
One Connecticut Company that has a presence in the region is Fairfield-based General Electric. Headquartered in Brussels, GE has had a presence in the Benelux region for over 50 years and has 5,000 men and women working for its Luxembourg, Belgian and Dutch clients.
In 2006, GE’s Benelux sales totaled $2.9 billion in the industrial and financial sectors.
But Sokolova said large companies are not the only ones that should consider establishing a presence there. She said small companies with fewer than 10 workers can also make the move, opening a small sales office or establishing a foothold in some other way.
“Size doesn’t matter,” Sokolova said.
