Indian Community in Belgium
There are about 7,000 persons of Indian origin in Belgium.
The average per capita income of Belgium is US$ 23,861. While the per capita income of the Indian community is not available, they are mainly to be found in the professional and more prosperous sections of society. Indians are employed in Software, the Diamond business and a few local industries in cities like Antwerp, Ghent, Brussels and Liege.
A section of immigrants from Palanpur district in Gujarat had entered the port city of Antwerp to work with the Jewish community in the diamond business, and eventually started their own.
The Antwerp Indians still form a very tightly knit group and actively celebrate Indian festivals.
Indian Software companies like Aricent, HCL, TCS and Infosys have a presence in Belgium while Indian Software Professionals are in great demand by multinationals like Swift, Compaq and Alcatel, because they are generally cheaper to employ than local Europeans with the same skills. The professional Indians in Belgium represent the modern, youthful face of India.
Some Farm labourers and Shop-hands, mainly immigrants from North India have also managed to enter Belgium illegally
Read more about this topic: Hinduism In Belgium
Famous quotes containing the words indian and/or community:
“The next forenoon we went to Oldtown.... The Indian is said to cultivate the vices rather than the virtues of the white man. Yet this village was cleaner than I expected, far cleaner than such Irish villages as I have seen.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The people needed to be rehoused, but I feel disgusted and depressed when I see how they have done it. It did not suit the planners to think how they might deal with the community, or the individuals that made up the community. All they could think was, “Sweep it away!” The bureaucrats put their heads together, and if anyone had told them, “A community is people,” they would not have known what they were on about.”
—May Hobbs (b. 1938)