I am lucky enough to be writing this sitting in my kitchen ahead of getting on a flight this evening heading to South Africa for Christmas. Such time leads one to think about the year past and the year ahead. It is easy to think about all the ‘problems’ and issues we have in Belgium and Flanders, but actually at a personal level our lives are really good. Generally, the perception is that there seems at first to be a lot of political and economic doom and gloom. There are however some key areas that lead me to believe that there is the potential to be optimistic. Aside from the wise words of Christine Lagarde on the macro economic front, we still see wage price inflation and generally a shortage of labour for the jobs on offer – always a good sign to me that the economy has some robustness in it. What bring me the most optimism however is the emergence of certainty and the progress in embedding of some key structural elements in the port.

I am lucky enough to be writing this sitting in my kitchen ahead of getting on a flight this evening heading to South Africa for Christmas. Such time leads one to think about the year past and the year ahead. It is easy to think about all the ‘problems’ and issues we have in Belgium and Flanders, but actually at a personal level our lives are really good. Generally, the perception is that there seems at first to be a lot of political and economic doom and gloom. There are however some key areas that lead me to believe that there is the potential to be optimistic. Aside from the wise words of Christine Lagarde on the macro economic front, we still see wage price inflation and generally a shortage of labour for the jobs on offer – always a good sign to me that the economy has some robustness in it. What bring me the most optimism however is the emergence of certainty and the progress in embedding of some key structural elements in the port.