Alibaba in Belgium is “worse than cocaine”

Inviting Alibaba into Liège Airport has been bad for Belgium, VUB professor Jonathan Holslag states. The promise that Belgian companies would be able to export to China has not been fulfilled, while the government is missing out on millions of euros in import duties.

Pawn of Chinese government

Alibaba was welcomed into Liege airport with much pomp and circumstance in 2018, as the Chinese e-commerce giant promised to make it a European logistics hub. It was supposed to bring new jobs and activity to the region, but according to the professor, it mainly brought in a Trojan horse. In his new report, Holslag confirms some of the findings of RetailDetail authors Jorg Snoeck and Pauline Neerman in their book The Future of Shopping.