Talk:Economy of Belgium/Archive 1

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US POV

I don't think people need to know that Belgium is half the size of Maryland, I personally know the size of Belgium better than I would that of Maryland, this paragraph has been copied from the CIA Factbook with an American POV in mind. I've replaced it with the actual size. --JDnCoke 16:29, 22 September 2005 (UTC)


GDP Growth

I'm updating smaller countries economic information, according to the IMF Belgian growth is as follows:

Year GDP
in billions of USD PPP
% GDP Growth
2002 286.239 0.9
2003 294.663 1.3
2004 309.011 2.7
2005 324.299 1.2
2006 338.130 2.0


Link for verification --JDnCoke 17:40, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

geography

It is also important to explain that the economy of flanders is very good because all the companies around brussels (ie : the airport) are actually in Flanders. Without that, the situation would be completely different. The harbours are also very important and make a big difference with Wallonia. Jrenier 17:55, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Hmmm, and what makes you think that? Maybe we should ask an economist. From what I read, the economic productivity in Flanders is higher all over Flanders, also in its provincs most far away from Brussels! Brussels thus seems a focal point, but certainly not the only major factor. Far more important appears the average productivity in flanders! --Lucas Richards 23:14, 13 July 2006 (UTC)


GDP nonsense

No way can you base "GDP rank" on the basis of a list containing a number of entities (such as the world at No 1 etc) which aren't countries. The only sensible meaning has to be for countries and taking over this CIA factbook definition just makes us look silly --BozMo talk 10:17, 9 October 2006 (UTC)


Cost Of living

The following information were added by Salv236 on the Belgian page on May 28, 2004:

Cost of Living

Income Tax

The rate of income tax for 2004 are are as follows:

25% 5,705 Euros
30% 5,705 - 8,120 Euros
40% 8,120 - 13,530 Euros
45% 13,530 - 24,800 Euros
50% 24,800 + Euros

The information could be integrated in "Economy of Belgium" but certainly not in the main Belgium page I think (otherwise, why not integrate the whole fiscal policies in details in there)... --Edcolins 20:47, 28 May 2004 (UTC)

Good idea. A distinctive article on taxation might be quite usefull, especially as labour charges are the highest from the entire world! --Rudi Dierick 23:08, 6 Nov 2004 (UTC)
On a related point I was quoted an effective rate of income tax of 53% yesterday ( I went there for some interveiws ) : I don't know how they came to this number, but I was offered well over 24k and they included other compulsory charges etc. They commented that they would have to explain my first pay slip to me : it would be quite complex! since this is 10% higher than neighbouring Germany this should be mentioned as a major point in criticism of Belgium. 217.7.209.108 08:14, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

GDP error

The GDP (PPP) is listed as being on the order of 'zillions.'

Who wrote this article? Dr Evil? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Fetmar (talk • contribs) 03:41, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

THIS READS LIKE AN ESSAY

Worse than that. It reads like a list of random numbers. Could somebody please alter this so that it tells a story?66.245.12.77 (talk) 06:53, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Neutrality !

The article is not suppose to include the propaganda of some flemish extremist.

It is _necessary_ to change many stuff in order to have a neutral article. Jrenier 15:17, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Could you specify what is not neutral? Mjolnir1984 17:44, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

The only neutral part is for me "Belgian economy in the 20th century". Rest of the text is totally biased against Wallonia. There is almost _nothing_ positive about wallonia in this article, while flanders seems to be the best place of the world. I know the flemish media are working hard to make everybody beleive that it is actually like that, but it's not. It is true that Wallonia had a "economic black out" but it's not anymore like that. The point of this article is to talk positive about the whole country. Do like the prime minister do (or should do) : he's promoting both part in a neutral way. Jrenier 16:52, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

I disagree. 1. It is very relevant to talk about the Wallon economy, as it is one of the main points of Belgian (or at least Flemish) politics. 2. It is not biased. Almost all economic indicators are highlighted, and there are significant differences. It would be not neutral not to speak about them, as they are one of the most relevant parts of Belgian economy. Mjolnir1984 18:21, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
Me to, I agree with Mjolnir. The facts and especially the comparison, are indeed not nice, nor satisfactory for Walloons, but as far as I can see, all facts are accurate, relevant and correct. The huge difference AND the negation of them by far to many French-speaking politicians are probably one of the main reasons for the accelerating growth in recent years for the support for Flemish independance (and more autonomy under one or another federal or confederal arrangement), see also the anamysis from the In de Warande group on that. --Lucas Richards 16:31, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Of course we have to speak about it. In the same way you speak about flanders : positive way. Of course, my wish is not to hide the reality : wallonia is late compare to flanders and yes, there are many significant differences, but i want to remove the part that say that wallonia is only bad and flanders only good. You understand me ? In this article, it's only white or black, let's put some grey.

You appear to have a very particular interpretation of those sections. I read lots of facts, but you only want to see the political meaning of them, and then, as you don't like the obvious political conclusions any reader can draw from the facts, you propose to censor the facts. I really cannot agree with that. --Lucas Richards 16:31, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
That's okay with me, BUT the purpose of Wikipedia is not to speak positively, but in a neutral way. Perhaps that is what you meant. Removing that part about Wallonia and Flanders is not neutral. Adding other important indicators however is. Among these indicators, some could be very well positively about Wallonia and negatively about Flanders, or positively/negatively about both. Mjolnir1984 19:45, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

I never meant that we should remove anything from any part. Just that we should neutralize the article. I'll do it a bit. We both know very well the situation in belgium, but i'm affraid about what could think somebody from outside when reading an article like that. Flanders is clearly better now, as well as Wallonia was clearly better 40 years ago. So let's try to not kill one region now, it can come back :) Would be nice to have a country with both regions very attractive no?

We all probably agree that if everybody would only say nice and positive things, quite some would feel better. But would that improve the quality of an encyclopedia? I diubt it. Moreover, what you advocate here is a purely political objective. That is something different from the infotrmative objective of Wikipedia. Looks like you better contribute your political ideals on political fora, but not here. At this place, we should indeed aim for the best, most accurate and relevant description of things. That means, neutral in the sense of not being selective in the facts, nor in the wordings. however 'neutral' does not mean that it should please all communities equally well. --Lucas Richards 16:31, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

It doesn't really matter who agrees and who doesn't (although it is obvious this article lacks some neutrality). What's really important here is the lack of sources, I mean there are some sources here and there but I've just started adding 'citation needed' tags and abondoned after the Bruxelles section because hardly anything is sourced. It's normal for people to be offended somehow if you write an article (be it in wikipedia or anywhere else) if you write an article like this and throw around statements without telling where it's come from. Take this for example:

"Language skills and general education level are better in Flanders; recent international studies position Flemish education in OECD or EU top quarter, versus bottom quarter for education in the French-speaking community (education being a Community competence and not a federal competence)"

Without a valid source, it should be removed. Not because of the message, if it's true it has its place here, but because there's no source. This talkpage would become a nonsense forum like website of people arguing about what we're talking about right here. Still, I can't see how anyone can honestly say this article is neutral! I'm not Belgian, but I know things can't be this simple. Sure there most be wealthy regions in Wallonia and poor in Flanders, why not focus on that? Why keep on hammering on the Flanders vs. Wallonia issue? 81.246.93.2 (talk) 18:11, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't see why there need to be more than about two sentences about the Flanders vs. Wallonia issue. It is not the main economic issue in Belgium. What about, I dunno, the impact of the EU being centered in Brussels? Of the Benelux? What does Belgium import? What does it export? This is not in any way an encyclopedic article about the economy of Belgium. 66.245.12.77 (talk) 06:56, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

While this page seems to show Flanders in good light, the French page (obviously) tries to show Wallonia in good light, stating many perceived facts and linking to sources and statistics that state that this is a misconception. I should take some time to try and find english-language citations for some claims. Unfortunately I am not a specialist on the issue. The only claim on which these two versions seems to agree is that Flanders would have a better education system according to various international studies. --Iv (talk) 09:33, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Flemish's view

This article on Wikipedia is written by Flemish extremists. It is even laughable when you read it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.158.242.130 (talk) 23:24, 29 January 2009 (UTC)


Questionable content

[Edit summary from Wikifalcon:] You can't cite every single fact on WP. If you can prove some of the given information is wrong, then delete it. For example: there is no port in world handling more than 2,208,906 new cars a year.

First off, edits where you add 2000 characters to the article are not minor and should not be marked as such. (In fact, now that I look at your contributions, it seems that you mark every single edit as minor. You might have edits marked as minor by default under your preferences and forgot about it.) Second, WP:NOCITE is abundantly clear that unsourced material is to be removed. This isn't a question of citing every single fact either; there are currently only 3 citations in the entire article. Of course, if you have a source saying that, for example, Bruges is the world's largest port in terms of vehicle traffic, all you have to do is add it and the article will be the better for it. -Oreo Priest talk 22:37, 6 August 2009 (UTC)


This article is a mess

This article is a mess. Most of its claims are uncited, which means they're liable to be deleted, especially if contentious. Anyone up for cleaning it up? Oreo Priest talk 00:37, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

I think I've extensively tidied it up. Any serious issues left? Oreo Priest talk 23:38, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Copy

The article is interesting and the writing is good. The only doubt I have is if it is a copy of this http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/2874.htm, or if they copied the article. Because a wikipedia article shouldn't be a simple copy of another text. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Marioct (talk • contribs) 07:47, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

This article contains so much questionable data and sourceless facts that it better would be discarded as a whole at once

It's clearly influenced by someone who's a supporter of the so-called Flemish nationalists, and who are spreading propaganda against the south eastern part of the country, which is poorer then the rest. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.21.135.241 (talk) 12:37, 30 November 2011 (UTC)


This article is the reason why Wikipedia is crap; neutrality and source citing mean nothing here. Also, look at how all these fools use American English instead of British English. Dead giveaway of someone who is highly influenced by trashy American culture.





I have deleted this "although this is in many ways artificial, as many of those that work in the Brussels-Capital Region live in Flanders or Wallonia. Their output is counted in Brussels and not where they live, artificially raising the per capita GDP of Brussels and slightly lowering that of Flanders and Wallonia.", because there is nothing artificial about the fact that GDP is about the value of all the services and products created within a given territory. The person who wrote this confused BNP (or 'BRP', Bruto Regional Product, or however you want to call that) and GDP. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 178.117.249.20 (talk) 06:56, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

External link

Hello everyone, I am working for the International Trade Centre (ITC), a UN/WTO agency that aims to promote sustainable economic development through trade promotion. I would like to propose the addition of an external link (http://www.macmap.org/QuickSearch/FindTariff/FindTariff.aspx?subsite=open_access&country=SCC056%7CBelgium&source=1%7CITC) that leads directly to our online database of customs tariffs applied by Belgium. Visitors can easily look up market access information for Belgium by selecting the product and partner of their interest. I would like you to consider this link under the WP:ELYES #3 prescriptions. Moreover, the reliability and the pertinence of this link can be supported by the following facts 1) ITC is part of the United Nations, and aims to share trade and market access data on by country and product as a global public good 2) No registration is required to access this information 3) Market access data (Tariffs and non-tariff measures) are regularly updated

Thank you, Divoc (talk) 15:30, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

Hi Divoc. I'd like to start by thanking you for being open about your affiliation and for asking that your organization's content be included rather than just doing it yourself.
Now onto the meat of the matter. I'm not sure what the value of the tool it as it stands would be. You said "Visitors can easily look up market access information for Belgium by selecting the product and partner of their interest", but the sheer specificity of that is incredible. While I'm not one to be afraid of data, there's no attempt to visualize or summarize anything. To get a feel for it, users have to manually select not only every country out of 200, but they also have to manually input products as specific as "Fresh or chilled cuts and edible offal of turkeys of the species domesticus".
So your tool does look useful for an expert with a very specific question, but I'm not sure that's the category readers of this article fall under. Thoughts? Oreo Priest talk 16:18, 28 August 2014 (UTC)
Thank you for your response Oreo Priest. I understand your issue with the specificity of the data. However, the simple fact is that we need to define sufficient parameters in order to provide meaningful market access data. However, products need not always be defined as detailed as the example you provide, and we do provide some data visualization in the 'Compare tariffs' module of our tool, which is also freely accessible (http://www.macmap.org/QuickSearch/CompareTariffs/CompareTariffs.aspx?subsite=open_access&source=1%7CITC%20Market%20Access%20Map). Here, higher level product groups (such as HS2 code 52 for "Cotton") will have trade-weighted average tariffs and a colour-coded map graphically illustrates market access & trade conditions for a country-product combination around the world. In a way this more aggregated data is interesting for readers with a general interest in trade, while detailed product definitions will be crucial in order to identify the exact requirements faced by exporters. Both types of readers may be looking for such information and subsequently access our tool via this page. If you feel that it would be more interesting to link to the 'Compare tariffs' functionality I am happy to do so. Furthermore, I feel it may be useful to create a separate section on 'statistical resources' under the external links, as is being done is several other 'economy of ...' pages that include trade/financial/economic data (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Spain). This signals the nature of such external links to users, who may then decide whether or not they want to 'dig in'. What do you reckon?
Finally, as a sidenote response to your comment on 'manually selecting' parameters, I would like to mention that I have the possibility to create deep links with partner countries and products pre-selected. However, given the broad scope of an 'economy of ...' article, implementing such a pre-selection would be hard to justify. Best, Divoc (talk) 09:26, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

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