John Baeyens

I read Jos Bouveroux’s post on VRTnieuws today.  He sees doomdays for Belgian appearing:
“Terecht jubelen onze bedrijfsleiders over de succeseconomie van China. Het is - samen met India en Brazilië - de enige motor van onze vooruitgang. Maar tegelijk worden wij langzamerhand gedegradeerd tot slechts toeleveranciers, liefst van grondstoffen waarmee de Chinezen dan kunnen spelen. Gezien de enorme afzetmarkt in China worden wij verblind door mogelijke fabelachtige winsten.
Als brave jongens mogen we knikken, als rijke Chinese oom ons een centje toestopt. Omzeggens heel Afrika is nu al afhankelijk van die Chinese nonkel. De rest van de wereld zal volgen.”
Some people are commenting with sarcastic comments (Mr. Bouveroux is not an economist and in his article he doesn’t claim to be so) on his ‘gutfeeling’.
But let’s stick to the facts:
- When you travel to South Africa, you see China’s omnipresense allover.  Africa is indeed being colonialised by China (except maybe from Angola where Brazil is omnipresent).
- Mr. Bouveroux states that Europe and the US will be reduced to ’suppliers’ towards Brazil, India and China.  Suppliers?  Of what?  Brazil is self-sufficient in energy, food,…  They are importing some machinery, processors from Intel; but all of that will soon be sourced from China or made locally.
- The best sign on the wall is the evolution of the stock markets: the MSCI  emerging index has outperformed the MSCI world index by 18,1% since beginning of January.  18,1% !!  And trust me, all signs point out that this is a structural evolution.  Cacao, wheat, soy oil, bio diesel (ethanol),… The Brazilian Bovespa index is breaking records because of the increase of commodity prices. Belgium doesn’t have any of that and all of that is becoming increasingly more expensive for us to source.  And what do we have that Brazil, India and China doesn’t have?  A better education?  Yes sure, time to wake up.