Zhengzhou visit, Belgian tolls, Witry named

Xavier Bettel, Luxembourg’s prime minister, visited Zhengzhou airport during the third day of his official visit to China. Zhengzhou is Cargolux’s second hub and home to its new joint venture, Henan Cargo Airlines.
“It’s not normal that foreign light vehicles pay nothing on our territory.” So said‎ Carlo Di Antonio, the Walloon region’s mobility minister, in a newspaper interview. ‎He suggested that Belgium could follow Germany in introducing a motorway toll pass system for foreign vehicles (the German scheme starts in 2019). However, such tolls for would be some time in the making. The Flemish regional government is in favour of a kilometer-based system, such as the one that has been used for lorries since 2016. Di Antonio said the two regions should find a common solution.
Consumption per capita in Luxembourg was 32% higher than the European average last year. That’s according to recent figures from Eurostat, the EU statistics agency. GDP per capita was 167% of the European average. (Editor’s note: per capita figures for Luxembourg are often skewed by the large number of cross-border commuters.)
The architect René Witry of Witry & Witry has been named chair of the Luxembourg Wood Cluster. The industry promotion group, part of Luxinnovation, launched last November. The country’s wood sector employs around 11,000 people at 1,500 firms.
Demolition work has already taken down much of the former maintenance hangar located at the central train station. The site will ultimately be converted into a mixed-use complex, with retail, office, restaurant and residential spaces.