Interview: Luxembourg hopes to boost business relations with China after COVID-19, says minister

TORONTO, June 21 (Xinhua) -- China is a key trade partner of Luxembourg and the Grand Duchy hopes to boost business with China in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, Luxembourg's minister for development cooperation, humanitarian affairs and the economy said on Tuesday.

"China and Luxembourg are celebrating the 50th anniversary of diplomatic relations this year. China is an important trade partner of Luxembourg," Franz Fayot told Xinhua in an interview on the sidelines of Collision, one of the world's largest technology conferences, which takes place in Toronto, Canada, from June 20-23.

"We have six or seven Chinese banks that have their European headquarters in Luxembourg. We have other economic relations through Cargolux and a lot of Luxembourg's businesses which are active in China," he said.

Given pandemic-induced disruptions and uncertainties in the world economy, Fayot voiced hope that the situation will stabilize and "will allow us to continue where we left off some more than two years ago."

Since the first opening of an overseas subsidiary of Bank of China in Luxembourg in 1979, the Grand Duchy has become a gateway to the European Union for Chinese financial institutions and investors.

Although Luxembourg is one of the smallest sovereign states in the world, it has been able to attract Chinese investors, banks, multinational corporations, state-owned enterprises, sovereign wealth funds, and high net worth individuals seeking to establish or expand their business in Europe.

In 2011, the Luxembourg Stock Exchange listed the first offshore RMB bonds, also known as Dim Sum bonds. Since then, the exchange between China and Luxembourg has experienced rapid growth which prompted Chinese investors to list RMB bonds in continental Europe.

"We managed the COVID-19 crisis quite well, coming out with a mild recession in 2020 and then bouncing back strongly in 2021," Fayot said on Luxembourg's economic situation.

Fayot, who joins some 35,000 people at Enercare Center in Toronto for Collision this week, said Luxembourg is building "a digital economy, with strong infrastructure, cutting-edge data centers, supercomputer, strong cybersecurity capacity," and all this to capacitate strong businesses in fintech, health tech, clean tech and generally a data economy.