Belgium, and by extension Flanders, has a good infrastructure and high quality of life that are attractive to many logistics companies — qualities that are sometimes enhanced by the presence of strong clusters in the pharmaceutical, biotech and automotive industries. The strategic and central location of the region remains its most important asset.

In times of high-speed and just-in-time delivery, it is important that warehouses are located close to the customer.

Donaldson, a global filtration technology company, recently announced the opening of four new distribution centers around the world. One of them is a 230,000 square foot facility in Bruges, Flanders.

The new facility is enhanced by state-of-the-art systems that allow of lean distribution services. Donaldson began shipping out of its Flemish center in November 2006. The company also expanded its facilities in Indiana, South Africa and Mexico.

Bill Cook, chairman, president and CEO of Donaldson, said that the new and expanded distribution centers represent major investments to safeguard the company’s future and are critical to its continued success of supporting customers locally.

Flanders’ port locations and logistics infrastructure have always attracted shipping companies worldwide. Now, Israel-based container operator ZIM Integrated Shipping Services wants to make a northern European hub out of Antwerp.

The Israeli ship owner provided an answer to the expected growth in its worldwide traffic during the next several years, with four new deep-sea services, which it started up in 2006.

ZIM chose the Port of Antwerp ahead of Hamburg and Rotterdam because it has the required capacity to handle the expected traffic volumes. Other decisive factors were the fact that Antwerp has no congestion problems, has plenty of room for expansion and offers an excellent service, according to the company. Currently, ZIM’s services in Antwerp are being transferred from the right bank of the River Scheldt to the Antwerp International Terminal at the recently opened Deurganckdock (on the left bank).

ZIM is considering starting up feeder services from the port of Antwerp to Scandinavia, Portugal, the UK and other countries.

Builder of heavy trucks and buses, Scania is closing its warehouse at its Swedish headquarters in Södertälje to create a world distribution center in the Flemish town of Opglabbeek. Again, Flanders has been chosen for its excellent location and logistics facilities, according to the company.

The distribution center in Opglabbeek already handles two-thirds of the group's supplies and is the only remaining distribution center for spare parts. The surface area is to double to 77,400 square yards, 72,000 square yards of which is for storage. The investment carries a price tag of 12 million euros and will add 110 new jobs to the existing work force of 260.

Germany and France Factors

Flanders is one of numerous regions of Europe that has become a logistics center. Transportation and logistics are also key sectors of the economies in Germany’s state of Nordrhein-Westfalen (NRW) and France’s Nord-Pas de Calais region.

During the past decade, various focal regions for logistics have emerged in NRW in the Duisburg region with duisport and logport, the Cologne region with the Eifeltor container terminal, and the eastern Ruhr region in Bonen. A distribution scheme called the “Last Mile Logistics” network has also been initiated in the cities of Gelsenkirchen, Herne and Herten to utilize their locations to win projects for end distribution to customers.

In Nord-Pas de Calais, Delta 3 is one of the few places in Europe to offer large developable sites for warehousing and distribution, with terminals serving multimodal transport modes. The hub provides road, rail and barge transport and sits about 15 miles south of Lille and 125 miles north of Paris in a triangle formed by major highways to Paris, London, Brussels and Rotterdam.

Its waterways access the ports of Dunkirk, Le Havre, Antwerp, Rotterdam and Amsterdam. Its rail connections run north-south and east-west.

Once Delta 3 is completed, it will provide 396,000 square yards of Class A warehouse space and rail connected warehousing to meet industrial users needs.

Spain’s Platforms

Spain is also fast developing as an important logistics location with its region of Aragon attracting the lion’s share of activity. Plataforma Logística de Zaragoza (PLAZA), with nearly 16 million square yards in Zaragoza, is currently Europe’s largest logistics platform.

The principle characteristic of PLAZA is its intermodal transport center (railways, roads and air routes) and the synergies this creates for supply chain management.

Gazeley Ltd., the European affiliate of retail giant Wal-Mart, will invest 300 million euros in warehouses and turnkey projects in Zaragoza by 2010. The group has completed the construction of a 25,200 square yard warehouse in the Plaza de Zaragoza industrial park and developed 48,000 square yards of addition space last year.

“When we started looking for possible locations in Spain, Aragon was not in our sights,” said Adriano Figueiredo, development director in Spain for Gazeley. “However, as soon as we started to research the market, we realized that it was the ideal location.”

More than 70 percent of Spain’s population lives within 186 miles of Zaragoza. This means rapid access to a market and a 28 million-plus work force.

Catalonia accounts for 11 percent of the logistics sector in Spain and has a network of intermodal logistics centers, many of which are in and around Barcelona. Between them, the Zona Franca Logistics Park, the Logistics Activities Area (ZAL) and ProLogis cover a surface area of 740 acres.

The ZAL is the Port of Barcelona’s intermodal logistics platform and the first to be set up in Spain. From here, 40 logistics freight companies carry out foreign trade operations. Companies like Ikea, Sony, Schneider Electric, SCA, Roche, Sanofi Aventis, Haldex, Honda and Nissan have set up distribution centers and logistics activities in Catalonia.

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