Starting a business in Belgium

[Rich]

BRUSSELS - There are an estimated 800,000 Filipinos brought by fate to the different countries of Europe. Most of them went to the English-speaking United Kingdom, followed by Italy, and then the other larger countries.

A few thousand Filipinos also made it to the heart of Europe, Belgium, where the European Commission and the European Parliament are situated. Even though the language here is French and Flemish, which is Belgian Dutch, they were still able to work well in this country.

There are Filipinos who, when they became resident or citizens, took the plunge and went into business in Belgium.

Like in the case of Filipinos Thelma Corpuz Nullar and Raquel Crisostomo who, in 2012, started FilBelge Titre Services, a cleaning company in Belgium.

They have been in business for only two years, but their gross income now exceeds over a million euros every year and it looks like the business will continue to grow.

Nullar, 41-years of old, grew up in Pangasinan. She has two children and her husband works in the United States. She started out as an au pair in Malaysia in 1992 until she was invited by her aunt to visit Belgium in 1995 as a tourist. She did not have papers for a while, but then she was fortunate to obtain a diplomatic employer.

While working, her employer allowed Nullar to study and she finished a three year Executive Secretary course in French.

"It was actually my husband who encouraged me to do so," she said.

The two of them started their business with a very small capital. "It was very difficult at first," Nullar related. "Raquel was working as a nanny, and I was working for an ambassador. After our daily employment, we would then work on the business until dawn, calling each other, sending emails. Because that was our only time and besides we both have families."

Initially, they would hold their meetings informally in different places. They would meet clients in a garage, or a restaurant. When Nullar finally left her employment with the ambassador, Crisostomo suggested that it was about time to get an office as people are already inquiring if their business is legitimate.

FilBelge titre services agency is allowed to do the following tasks:

- Cleaning
- Ironing in a private home
- Preparing food
- Shopping
- Ironing in an office
- Transporting the elderly

Their business is prohibited from doing the following tasks:

- Childminding
- Adult care
- Buying or giving medicine
- Gardening

Their cleaning services are paid for by ticket or voucher purchased by clients from Sodexo, a local agency, and the vouchers are given to the workers as payment. The workers submit the tickets to FilBelge who then return them to Sodexo for encashment. These tickets are subsidized by the Belgian government. They cost 9 euros, but when returned they get a much bigger amount.

As new laws are promulgated regularly, Nullar deals with corporate matters and uses her knowledge of French for legalization and other documents and to deal with the Belgian authorities.

Crisostomo, the other half of Fil-Belge, looks after the finance and marketing sides of the company.

Born in Pasay City, the 44-year old businesswoman was a teacher and manager at Jollibee fast food chain. She came to Brussels in 2004 and worked as a Nanny for British diplomats and after two years she was able to bring over her husband and four children.

Crisostomo is used to the detailed management of business even when she was back in the Philippines, and she is used to keeping all documents related to their business. So she keeps all the receipts submitted to her everyday and puts them in their company files. Then at the end of the month she would produce a financial account which she then passes to their accountant.

They have to be thorough in listing the hours of work of their employees because this is the source of their income. Every worker has a planning schedule and they submit their hours every 15th and 31st of the month. This is encoded and Crisostomo will double check that they indeed worked. This is then sent to social security through email and further encoded. All deductions are worked out, and the government provides a subsidy. The more tickets you send in, the more subsidy you will get in return.

The partners are very scrupulous when dealing with tickets. They know that there are those who simply purchase tickets for submission, but knowing that they could be 'controlled' or inspected at any time, FilBelge is careful that they do not accept any tickets they cannot verify from non-clients. "It is better to be straight," said Nullar, "as you do not want to risk losing your business license."

They also have intensive marketing activities to inform expats in Brussels of their services, and for the community to know that they could join FilBelge as their titre services agency. They know that marketing does not necessarily work overnight, but believe that once they are in people's subconscious, then that would last forever. So they sponsor a lot of events, although their best marketing is by word of mouth.

Crisostomo explained, "When you deal with them nicely, they would pull people in for you. Family members, friends who they could persuade on the tram. During independence day we feed people for free and give out flyers."

Crisostomo is quite elated at what she has achieved so far.

"Looking back, I just cannot believe that I now have a business here. I cannot believe that I am now in Belgium. Looking back on all the hardships I have been through, I tell my children you are lucky that I was able to do all this. You will not go through the hardships I went through," she said.

To those who wish to start a business in Belgium, the two friends are very supportive. Crisostomo said, "First of all they should pray, because when Thelma and I started planning we were in church. You have to be determined. You have to be jack of all trades. Once you start doing it and face a problem, you need to ask if what you are doing is right, whether you are going in the right direction."

Nullar agrees. "If you have a dream in life, you need to do it. Like with my studying the French language. They told me you will not be able to use that in cleaning dirt. I told them, I am still young and I hope that I would not be doing that all the time."

The two friends are happy that they are also able to help their compatriots while they are doing their business.

FilBelge assists Filipinos in Belgium in sorting out their immigration status. They can help by giving contracts to the undocumented, provided they have already previously been given permission to stay by the Belgian government.

This allows them to renew their working permit and regularize their stay. To date, they have assisted five undocumented people to obtain work permits, and they have also managed to bring two au pairs from the Philippines to work in Belgium.

So far FilBelge has 80 employees, mostly Filipinos, and the company continues to grow.

In the next part of Immigration 101: Fil-Belgian Business, another titre services company, B.Free, will share their story with us and we will learn what to do in order to start a business in Belgium.
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Bekijk en video : http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/global-filipino/01/03/15/starting-business-belgium

[jiggy]

Eindelijk nog eens een positief geluid en informatief stukje hier op dit forum.
Hopelijk wordt dit de trend voor 2015 !