Speaking to Delano on the sidelines of the Chinalux fifth anniversary celebrations on Thursday, Luc Decker would not reveal the names of the two firms but said they were expected to make announcements in the summer.

He said it showed a shift in the kind of business Luxembourg was attracting from China. “There will probably be less people with ties,” he said of the new generation of innovative companies that come to Luxembourg as a point of entry for the European market.

“Whereas what we saw in the past was mainly investment to buy companies to acquire resources to get stronger on the Chinese market.” Nowadays, he said, innovative SMEs working in areas such as blockchain needed a presence abroad in order to do business globally.

Rebirth

Chinalux was revived in 2013 from the ashes of a previous Chinese chamber of commerce of the same name, which was founded in 2001.

At the Chamber of Commerce reception on Thursday, Chinalux president Dirk Dewitte reflected dramatic developments in trading with China over the past five years, such as the internalisation of the Renminbi and the one belt one road initiative, of which Luxembourg was an early adopter. He said the chamber would focus on its digital transformation in coming years. Meanwhile, an economic mission to China is planned for later in 2018.

Economic mission to China

The director of international affairs at the Luxembourg Chamber of Commerce, Jeannot Erpelding, explained the chamber will take a step back in its approach to the next mission. “We are looking more actively at Hong Kong again, which is a step back to former days when if you went to China, you went to Hong Kong (first),” he said. “In recent years people were going straight to the mainland.”

Erpelding said that larger firms no longer required their support in this respect while for smaller firms, visiting a province could be too overwhelming. This mission will therefore focus on Hong Kong, Shanghai and Zhengzhou, which is served by Cargolux. The mission delegation will also visit the China Import Expo and organise a Henan-Luxembourg economic forum.