CE tours Luxembourg Stock Exchange and meets Prime Minister

Ho Iat Seng meets with Luxembourg’s Prime Minister Xavier Bettel

Continuing his tour of Luxembourg, the Chief Executive (CE) Ho Iat Seng yesterday visited the Luxembourg Stock Exchange as well as meeting with the country’s Prime Minister, Xavier Bettel.

The CE’s visit to Luxembourg is related to the experience and success of the small European country in developing its financial sector. The CE said that the government wants to learn from Luxembourg to develop a “secondary market” for bonds in Macau, in a bid to develop what the government calls a “modern financial industry.”

During the visit and a briefing about the stock exchange’s operations, the CE also witnessed the signing of a cooperation protocol between the chairman of the board of directors of Chongwa Financial Assets Transaction (Macau), S.A., Zhang Weichun, and the CEO of the Luxembourg Stock Exchange, Julie Becker. The two parties will continue to jointly explore new opportunities to innovate and cooperate in the financial market business and promote bond market connections with other parts of the world.

The Luxembourg Stock Exchange, Europe’s largest bond exchange, was founded in 1928 and is one of China’s main overseas bond issuance markets.

In 2016, the Luxembourg Stock Exchange established the world’s first green exchange.

Earlier in the same day, Ho met with Luxembourg Prime Minister and Minister of State Xavier Bettel, who also holds the titles of Minister for Communications and Media, Minister for Religious Affairs, Minister for Digitalization and Minister for Administrative Reform.

During the meeting, both parties discussed strengthening cooperation between Macau and Luxembourg in several areas, namely economics, commerce and modern finance. The CE again expressed interest in taking advantage of this visit to learn from Luxembourg’s successful experience in the development of its financial sector, an exemplar for Macau’s bid to properly diversify its economy.

Ho also presented briefly on the ongoing projects and initiatives in which Macau is playing a leading role or taking part, with a special focus on the Cooperation Zone, which Ho sees as a good opportunity to facilitate the entry of products into the Macau and China markets.

In turn, Bettel noted the many similarities between Luxembourg and Macau, namely in their demographics and also their gross domestic product, despite a small geographic area.

Bettel also noted Luxembourg’s interest in sharing its expertise with Macau not only in the finance sector but also in other areas such as trade, which he noted is essential to promote stability between sectors.

After the stock exchange visit, the CE and Macau delegation departed for Brussels, Belgium, the last stop of their tour before returning to Macau.