Luxembourg has been ranked 18th in the recently-released European Digital City Index (EDCi), aimed at identifying the most entrepreneur-friendly cities in Europe.
The Grand Duchy was found to have been ranked 18 out of 35 in this Index, which was produced by Nesta as part of the European Digital Forum which took place from 20 to 22 October 2015 in the Portuguese capital of Lisbon. The Index provides a positive reflection of the Luxembourg government's recent Digital Lëtzebuerg initiative which aims to encourage digital entrepreneurship in the City and wider country.
"ICT services have become an important driver of the economy," the EDCi wrote. "Luxembourg's digital sector initially developed in support of the rapidly growing financial, boradcasting and space sectors, before expanding into a global hub for information and communication technologies (ICT)".
The report went on to say that whilst Luxembourg may not currently hold many local success stories in the field of startups, a number of young initiatives, particularly in Fintech, are being persuaded to set up their businesses in Luxembourg".
The Index covers every capital city of the 28 Member States, including the 7 non-capital cities of Barcelona, Cologne, Munich, Stuttgart, Cambridge and Milan which represent important hubs of digital entrepreneurship. Considering its small size in comparison to big-players such as London, Amsterdam, Paris and Dublin, which naturally generate a greater number of startups, Luxembourg appears to be holding its own in this domain. However, Silicon Luxembourg pointed out that Luxembourg still had a lot of room in which to improve, highlighting its digital infrastructure and lack of availability of fibre internet as a weakness for the Grand Duchy.
Photo by EDCi
