Belgium appoints ‘economic supremo’ for south-eastern US states

Anton Mertens, a partner in a Georgian law firm, has been appointed Belgium’s adviser for economic diplomacy for Georgia with the responsibility of encouraging foreign investment from Belgium into the Southeast, writes Global Atlanta’s Phil Bolton. He was appointed by Belgium’s foreign affairs minister and is the first in the U.S. to hold this position. Brussels-born Mertens serves as a member of the executive committee of the Belgian American Chamber of Commerce’s Atlanta chapter. He is a fellow of The Lawyers Foundation of Georgia and an active member of the American Immigration Lawyers Association’s Atlanta chapter, the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce’s Global Commerce Council, the Lawyers Club of Atlanta and the State Bar of Georgia’s Immigration Law Section, of which he is a former chair. At Burr & Forman, he counsels clients on a wide variety of immigration matters and advises employers on compliance procedures regarding work eligibility. “With more and more foreign companies targeting Atlanta as a centre of growth for U.S. investment opportunities, we are proud to have formed this partnership to promote exchange of resources and knowledge,” Lee Thuston, managing partner of Burr & Forman, said in a news release.