Brussels, 15/12/2009 (Agence Europe) - On Tuesday 15 December the National Bank of Belgium (BNB) and the Bureau fédéral belge du Plan (BFP) published an impact study on the services directive in the internal market, which will be published at the end of this month. This study concludes that the economic impact expected will be “low but positive”: at a macro-economic level, Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in Belgium could grow within a 0.5% and 1% band, while job creation is expected to be between 6000 and 9000 units.
According to the authors of the study, implementation of the services directive could lead to a significant increase in exports from sectors where the directive is applied particularly those where opportunities for carrying out cross-border business, such as the real estate sector, construction, rentals, and information technology and enterprise assistance services. Exports in services account for a limited segment of activity in the sectors and in all Belgian exports (20%). The study therefore indicates that, “the effect on turnover is expected to be limited”, which will also be the case for, “the impact on foreign investment and imports in services”.
This study is focusing on the specific case of wholesale and retail trade, which accounts for 13% of GDP in 2007. The BNP and BFP notes that, “the administrative simplification, which the directive will create, should have considerable effects on performance, particularly wholesale trade”, even though the study does not state what the scale of this could be. The document can be consulted in French and Dutch at: http: //http://www.plan.be/admin/uploaded/200912141448230.fr.pdf (M.B.)