The Belarusian-European Economic Forum “Belarus. Invest in tomorrow”, is being held on 27 October 2017 at the Neumunster Abbey Cultural Exchange Center in Luxembourg.
Main objective
The main objective of the forum is to create an effective and result-oriented, multi-level platform for establishing a stable interaction between Belarusian credit and financial institutions and business entities with European partners and promoting strong, in many respects unique aspects of the Belarusian economy (IT, logistics) among Western business circles.
Goals
The event is aimed at attracting western investments to develop new industrial facilities in Belarus, studying the Luxembourg practices of developing the financial system and developing a country as an internationally-recognized financial and investment centre. The forum will also focus on raising awareness of potential customers about the capabilities of Belarusian IT companies to produce software products. Participants are set to discuss priority infrastructure projects, which implementation will result in new competitive channels for delivering goods from/to Western Europe via Belarus, including as part of the Belt and Road initiative.
Organizers
The organizers of the forum are the National Agency of Investment and Privatization, the Embassy of the Republic of Belarus in the Kingdom of Belgium, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Belarus, the Ministry of Economy of the Republic of Belarus.
Speakers
The large number of top-level speakers to address the Belarusian-European Economic Forum includes the Prime Minister of Belarus Andrei Kobyakov, the European Commissioner for Neighbourhood Policy and Enlargement Negotiations Johannes Hahn, the Secretary of State for the Economy of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg Francine Closener, the Vice-President and Member of the Management Committee of the European Investment Bank (EIB) Alexander Stubb, the Executive Director of the German Committee on Eastern European Economic Relations Michael Harms, etc.
Participants
The European Commission, European Investment Bank (EIB) and European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) are all represented at the forum, together with representatives of the Belarusian government, businesses and financial institutions, and key European stakeholders in the fields of infrastructure, transport, and IT. Furthermore, the forum targets participants from the Ministry of Finance of Luxembourg, the Association of Luxembourg Banks, the Luxembourg Association of Investment Funds, the Associations – Innovation Luxembourg and Financial Luxembourg, separate financial institutions of Luxembourg; the Nordic Investment Bank; etc.
Location
The choice of the site is due to the recognized authority of Luxembourg in the field of international finance. To date, Luxembourg is Europe’s leading and second largest after the US investment centre. In a country with a population of just over 500.000 people, there are about 3.900 investment funds and 143 banks. The total capital of the Luxembourg financial system is more than €740 billion. Luxembourg’s attractiveness as a financial centre is based on a high level of investment protection and a flexible tax planning system. Considering “Brexit”, the country’s role in the international financial market will grow in the coming years.Another strategic direction of Luxembourg’s development is IT-technologies. Luxembourg claims leadership in the Third Industrial Revolution, which is based on “digital” technology. It is planned that the projects “National Internet” (100% coverage of the population with broadband Internet at a speed of 1 Gb/s by 2020), “Electric mobility” (ecological cars), “Mobility as a service” (use of multi-modal technologies) will be launched soon. Furthermore, the convenient geographical location of Luxembourg makes it possible to actively involve German, French, Belgian and Dutch companies to participate in the forum.
