Yesterday 24 February an online networking event with professionals & entrepreneurs from the 15 BeLux Chambers in Asia was held; this was a great way to accelerate business matching & exchange information!
During this event the participants were able to share their professional backgrounds and business goals and managed to seek exposure to new markets or expand their networks. Participants were matched into breakout rooms by industry/sector using the Zoom platform, where they were able to meet with like-minded individuals working in Asia. When registering for the event the participants were asked to indicate which industry was of interest to them. Every 20 minutes all the participants were put back in the general room and feedback about the breakout room network session was shared amongst the participants. There was a total of 8 breakout rooms which were the following:
- Finance;
- Tech;
- Transport & logistics;
- HR;
- Manufacturing;
- Agronomy;
- Healthcare;
- Tourism.
The first 15 minutes of the event each Asian BeLux Chamber introduced themselves after which the breakout rooms were presented accordingly.
Interesting topics were discussed in each room, for instance in the breakout room “Tourism”, the host Mr Daniel Pans (located in Malaysia), gave every attendee the chance to introduce themselves; many interesting people were present with all different work-related backgrounds and they shared why they choose the tourism breakout room today. Each participant could share how the tourism is in their country but also how/if it has developed these years with the current measures. In addition, there was a focus on the hurdles of tourism today and what exactly is a possible solution for it to get better in the future.
In the breakout room “Transport & Logistics” Hong Kong based representative of BLCC Corporate Member Landmark Global Bpost Mr Jan Huisman briefly introduce the activities of his company in Asia & globally and then invited participants to share their points of view. There have been several developments in the customs area, for example VAT now needs to be paid on all purchased goods shipped to the EU. Customs representatives explained how this change was managed from their side. Another view that was shared was from Vietnam, where a participant laid out that in Vietnam there are several initiatives to switch moving goods by truck to rail. This requires investments of course and so there are opportunities aplenty for companies to jump into this need.
In the breakout room “Tech” one of the issues discussed was the difficulties experienced around recruiting the right talents to take companies to the next level. It is an issue that all countries were reporting with equal challenges!
After the two 20 minute sessions, we wrapped up the event with 2 clear learnings: firstly 20 minutes is too short and secondly that we should certainly organize such an event again. We happily will!