Luxembourg and BRIC – A business link made in heaven

The Luxembourg relationship with the BRIC countries has become increasingly important over the years, with trade consistently increasing and business relations becoming ever more favourable.

Last month, we took part in a BRIC panel discussion looking at, in particular, the manufacturing cooperation between the countries.

What were our key takeaways?

The conference gave deeper insight into the longstanding manufacturing industries in each of these markets, as well as illustrating why the BRIC countries continuously develop business with Luxembourg.

Luxembourg

• Luxembourg has a well-established manufacturing industry. Therefore, can be seen as not only a key player in the financial industry but a big player in multiple industries

According to Luxembourg Trade & Invest, “dominated by the metal and chemical industries, the sector has a strong international orientation and exports the lion’s share of its production. With 32,200 employees, the sector represents 8.3% of total national employment and 4.6% of the national added value.”

Luxembourg is hosting the main R&D and productions site for sectors such as automotive.

Perhaps most importantly is that the country has well-developed technology to support the rapidly growing manufacturing industry

• Luxembourg is a key European hub, with a favourable business environment, for each of the BRIC countries, with big players using the small country as an international finance and holding location for investment vehicles
• Attractiveness of Luxembourg has further increased over the past years, with banks increasing their presence and an ever-growing interest in setting up funds and issuing bonds at the Luxembourg Stock Exchange, with the LSE having a focus on a “gateway to China”.
• Luxembourg is a pioneer for Industry 4.0 

The Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology speaks about the need for manufacturing companies to “be innovative in an increasingly competitive economic environment, increase their productivity while reducing the costs, provide highly customized products, and have ever shorter time-to-market and delivery times”. Industry 4.0 is all about digital organisation and management of processes and data associated with the value chain in the manufacturing sector and Luxembourg is at the forefront of these developments

• Luxembourg is renowned for being efficient in attracting top talent with high the technical know-how
• Luxembourg has an increasingly complex international compliance and tax environment so it is important to remain competitive in the international context, whereby remain committed to the fight against tax evasion and avoidance and remain fully transparent

The BRIC countries

• The Russian local market has a very qualified workforce, local production and can act as a hub for other countries, in particular for Asia
• India is an enormous market with a qualified work force and 75 years of diplomatic ties
• China boasts 18% of global manufacturing, whereas India has just 2%. The “make in India” initiative launched 5 years ago has, therefore, has had limited effect
• Brazil is the biggest market in Latin America and opened the first One panellist spoke about how the new Brazilian government has been received with hope to turn the recession into a sustainable growth environment, stating that the challenge will be too see whether the measures put in place will have a positive impact on the economy and decrease the social inequalities
• A large Portuguese-speaking community in Luxembourg helps with integration from LATAM countries

Present in all the right places – Intertrust has a global coverage of more than 3500 employees over 30 jurisdictions. We have a representative office in Brazil and a strong presence in both India and China. Working closely across our network, we have in-house expertise from each of the BRIC countries, speaking your language.

Read more about the BRIC event by following these links:

BRIC event 2019 – BRIC and Luxembourg – Manufacturing partnership – Summary

BRIC event 2019 – BRIC and Luxembourg – Manufacturing partnership – Agenda

BRICS 2019 Luxembourg review