Alibaba promises 900 jobs for Liège hub

Chinese e-commerce powerhouse Alibaba has released more details about the investments that logistics subsidiary Cainiao has planned for the Belgian Liège Airport. It claims to have invested than 100 million euros in the project, which should create 900 direct jobs.

100 million euros

Alibaba’s plans for a large distribution centre at the airport near Belgium’s fifth city have been known for some time, but now Cainiao has provided a status update on the project. The 220,000 sqm site will feature a 30,000 sqm warehouse, for which building permits have now been applied. Under normal circumstances, the site should be operational mid-2021 at the latest.

At the moment, there are already three cargo flights a week between Liège and China, Belgian newspaper Het Laatste Nieuws reports. Each flight transports about one hundred tonnes of goods. In addition, there are also three trains every week, each of which delivers 800 to 900 tonnes of freight.