The small region of Flanders near near the North Sea is a prosperous area with close links with its neighbouring countries, the Netherlands, Germany, France and the United Kingdom. The region turns its open character into its trademark and is nowadays success fully carrying out a pivotal role in Europe.

As the plane circles over the airport at Brussel, you see the typical flat landscape sliding below you: black and white cows grazing in the patchwork of fields and meadows, the countless villages with their pointed church spires, the compact network of roaps with a busy line of traffic crawling along and in the distance, the glittering skyline of the capital city.

Flanders borders on the North Sea, with a sandy beach 65 kilometres long. The warm Gulf Stream passing here, ensures a temperate maritime climate with grey winter days around 5 degrees Centigrade and pleasant summers when the temperature rises to an average of 2I degrees Centigrade.

Since the Middle Ages, Flanders has been a very dynamic region with busy commerce and trade in the cities and active agriculture in the countryside, working the fertile soil of clay, sand and loam. The Flemish people still enjoy being described as hard workers, and quite rightly: in terms of productivity per employee, the region still scored 21,7% higher than average for the EU-15 in 2002. railways and roads in Flanders

Flemish agriculture continues to perform well, but now produces only 1.5% of GDP. The region has evolved to become a pronounced service economy with a service sector accounting for 67.8% of the GDPandstrongindustrial sector contributing 30.6% to the GDP. Its central position in Europe, with well-developed ports and a compact, infrastructure of roads, has always been the greatest asset for Flanders. Together with the high educational level and the social stability, this means that the region has a strong basis for the continued development of a high quality knowledge-based economy, which is the key to the future.

In 2003, Flanders was one of the most prosperous areas in the world, with a percapita GDP of 26.900 euros purchasing power parity, and the region enjoys life to the full. The inhabitants have cleaned up their historic art cities and enjoy strolling through their car-free city centres. Although the international chains predominate in the main shopping streets, the local economy is still strongly
based on a colourful fabric of small, high quality traders. Every district still has its local butcher and baker who bakes his own bread, and every day there will be an open-air market somewhere in the city where traders can sell their produce.

Above all, the Flemish people love good food. The cities are teeming with cafes and bistros which often stay open until the early hours and where you can sample the hundreds of different Flemish beers. The quality of restaurants is generally very high, and in most cities they cover the cuisine of every part of the world. The Flemish cuisine itself parallels French cuisine and in recent years
has incorporated Mediterranean and Asian touches.

It is a small country, with many foreign influences: the Flemish people live at the crossroads of the Germanic North and the Latin South in Europe, and have traditionally always been in close contact with other languages and cultures. Like their neighbours to the north, their mother tongue is Dutch and with 21 million people speaking this language it is one of the medium-sized languages of the continent. At school, the Flemish people learn to: speak French and English to a high standard from a very early age. They have a reputation for being excellent at languages, and most Flemish people actually do speak a second or even a third language fairly fluently.

The open attitude to other cultures is also striking in the media. Newspaper shops in the cities all include the main European papers on their shelves, cinemas put on their fIlms in the original ve;rsion with Dutch subtitles, and the programmes on TV - 87% of people have cable television - comprise more than thirty channels, including.all the main European and a selection of American channels. The theatres, concert halls and cultural centres also often have a decidedly international programme.