Located in the centre of the strategic London-Paris-Berlin triangle, Liège has an impact on 160 million people living within a radius of 500 kilometres and who hold 60% of the buying power in the European Union. Europe alone represents an enormous market of almost half a billion consumers. Liège is a bridge between the cultures of the North and South and provides access to an ideal test market, whether for final consumers (B2C) or for products and services aimed at businesses (B2B).

The fact of being close to everything and everyone in Europe is a solid competitive advantage. In Liège, businesses are close to their customers, suppliers and prospective partners.

Transport and logistics, industries specialised in the metal and equipment fields as well as related centres of research, automotive subcontracting and mobility, medical biotechnology, the agri-food industry, water, call centres, aerospace centres, science and many more.
Sector organisations also bring together start-up companies and large enterprises, the University, higher education schools and even hospitals, thus providing an environment conducive to special cooperation between public and private organisations.
New types of more closely linked small and medium sized enterprises are setting up in the region while older businesses are transforming. They tend to be in the innovative technology line of business, launching high added-value products onto the market and exporting them worldwide. For several years, the University of Liège has been one of their close partners. The University has specialist knowledge in many areas and offers its human and material expertise to businesses. One of the most striking examples of how the region is transforming is in space engineering, an incredibly sophisticated field. The integration of different skill areas has given rise to Liège’s very own Spatiopôle which remains in close contact with the aeronautics industry and large space research agencies (ESA, NASA).