Belgium: according to a study by the firm PricewaterhouseCoopers, 85% of major Belgian companies are confident in economic recovery and envisage mergers and acquisitions as the engine of external growth. The study was carried out during the summer of 2003 using representative samples of companies that over the last three years have been active in Belgium in these kind of operations. 60% of companies questioned confirm that their merges and acquisitions strategy experienced a slow down over recent years due to the economic recession. The current recovery is interpreted by 71% of them via increased interest in new transactions, a confidence that is, however, characterised by a delay in recovery in continental Europe. Companies highlight that above all "they want to remain in good health" and "then prefer to be big rather than small" in order to deal more effectively with the stakes at play in the globalisation of the world economy. Following a loss of almost 50% in the value of mergers and acquisitions between 2000-2002, the volume in transactions between the final quarter of 2002 and the first quarter of 2003 increased by more than 40%. PwC indicates that he second and third quarters of 2003 confirm this trend.