At the beginning of this month, Luxembourg’s Minister of Finance, Pierre Gramegna, undertook a financial mission in New York and Washington respectively.
During the visit to New York, between 4 and 6 October, the Finance Minister took part in a seminar organised by ALFI (the Luxembourgish Funds Industry Association) and LPEA (the Luxembourgish Private Equity and Risk Capital Association). The seminar was aimed at finance professionals, and had 200 people in attendance.
Minister Gramegna visited “Raise New York”, a Fintech incubator, and discovered several start-ups. He also had meetings with the leaders of established international groups in the USA, in which he discussed their development strategies in the light of the implementation of BEPS (Base erosion and profit shifting) and the consequences of Brexit.
In Washington, Minister Gramegna took part in the IMF (International Monetary Fund) and the World Bank’s Autumn sessions. As part of these meetings, on 8 October, he participated in a round table event on the subject of Green Finance and, especially, green bonds. The aim of this discussion was to highlight the pioneering role of Luxembourg’s financial space, notably the Luxembourgish Stock Market, in the subject.
The Minister had other bilateral meetings during this time with his counterpart from the UAE, Obaid Humaid Al Tayer, in order to prepare a financial mission to the UAE, organised in conjunction with LFF for 2017. His other meetings were with Indranee Raja, the Minister of State for Finance in Singapore, and Boima Kamara, the Liberian Minister of Finance, and their aim was to discuss bilateral relations.
Finally, Gramegna met with Suma Chakrabarti, the Manager of BERD, Anthony De Lannoy, the IMF’s designated Manager, and Poul Thomson, the Director of European Development at the IMF.
