Advocating free trade and more trade is good. But lending a helping hand is even better!

As announced in my previous blog, I am going to dwell a bit on the relationship between Luxembourg and the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN), a best practice and obvious illustration of the way we cultivate, maintain and foster economic and diplomatic relations with economies that are of key interest for our members, Luxembourg’s businesses. Continue reading

The delicate art of preparing the future

We can say without doubt, that planning the future is a matter that does concern all of us. Running a company bears the immense responsibility of assessing the risks in an environment where the future state of the corporate world is very difficult to predict. However, the norm in many companies – and this counts for large and small entities – is that we are often very busy with the daily business, putting out little fires here and there, leaving us with little time to reflect. New ventures – such as developing new products, adapting new business models, tapping into new markets – happen sometime by chance, often in response to external events that seem often beyond our control. Continue reading

Brexit – Entering uncharted territory !

All eyes are on Britain. The burgeoning OUT claims by Eurosceptic backbenchers or politicians pursuing “hidden agendas” have not only fed the looming threat of EU fragmentation, they have also been sapping investors’ confidence and led them to postpone their strategic decisions over the past few months. I am neither going to comment on the likelihood of a Brexit, nor will I try to quantify its impact on the Luxembourg economy – which is impossible anyways, due to the multifaceted links between our two countries and because we simply don’t know how the trade relationships between the EU and the UK would look like post-Brexit. Continue reading