Accompanying Luxembourg’s finance minister Yuriko Backes on her official visit to Stockholm, Luxembourg’s financial community this week sought to strengthen its financial ties with Sweden, considered a “natural partner” for the Grand Duchy. Backes also discussed plans to support the reconstruction of Ukraine with her Swedish counterpart.
Travelling back to Luxembourg, Backes said on Twitter that her visit had been “very productive.” Backes was accompanied by a Luxembourg for Finance delegation and several representatives of Luxembourg’s financial services sector.
“As innovative and open economies and among the world’s leading green financial centres, Sweden and Luxembourg are natural partners and allies,” said Backes. “A strong and competitive European economy is not only a precondition for achieving our net zero ambition, but also for supporting the inevitable reconstruction of war-torn Ukraine.”
Backes held discussions with decision makers from the major banks and asset managers in Stockholm, including Kristin Magnusson Bernard, the CEO of AP1, Sweden’s national pension fund which has assets of approximately 44 billion euro.
More than half of the international investment funds distributed in Sweden are funds with a legal home Luxembourg. Several Swedish and pan-Nordic banks and asset managers have established competence centres and their main investment fund platforms in the Grand Duchy. Sweden is the fifth largest market in terms of insurance premium collection for the Luxembourg life insurance industry.
Sanctions, cyber risks addressed in war context
Her discussions in Sweden generally focused on the strategic priorities in Europe and Luxembourg of these players, and more specifically their views on climate transition financing, as the Swedish financial sector is a pioneer in sustainable investment, a Luxembourg government press release said.
Meeting with her Swedish counterpart Mikael Damberg the day after Sweden officially submitted its application to join NATO, Luxembourg’s finance minister underlined the importance of the EU plans for a Capital Markets Union and for European financial centres in making the EU more competitive, and addressed ways to close the investment gap with the US and Asia which has widened since the last financial crisis.
The minister also met with Sweden’s minister for financial markets, Max Elger, to discuss the main areas of financial regulation in the European Union, as well as financial sanctions and the risks of cyber attacks in the context of the war in Ukraine.
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