Luxembourg, 24 November 2016 – Extraordinary General Assembly

The Official Spanish Chamber of Commerce in Belgium and Luxembourg held last Novemdsc_0574ber 24 in Luxembourg its Extraordinary General Assembly. The Ambassador of Spain in Luxembourg and Honorary Chairman of the Chamber, his Excellency Mr.Carlos María de Lojendio y Pardo Manuel de Villena, attended to the meeting, which took place in the Cercle Münster.

During the Assembly, the budget for 2017 was presented and the statuary adaptation, according to the comments received by the Servant Lawyer, was debated. Likewise, the Secretary General informed the members about the next activities of the Chamber

Gala Dinner 2016 | December 1

The Official Spanish Chamber of Commerce in Belgium and Luxembourg hold on the 1st December its Annual Gala Dinner in the NH Collection Hotel Grand Sablon in Brussels, which the participation of the mayor of Brussels, Yvan Mayeur, as a guest of honor. Furthermore, it brought together senior executives from both Spanish and international firms, as well as members of the Spanish diplomatic corps and European institutions.

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The dinner, sponsored by AECOM company, started with the welcoming words of the president of the Chamber, Juan Rodríguez-Villa Matons, who thanked all the guests for joining the dinner and went through the bonds of union between Brussels, Belgium and Spain throughout history in his speech. Also, he highlighted the “excellent collaboration” that the Chamber and the public organizations from the city currently maintain.

After him, the Mayor of Brussels, Yvan Mayeur, underlined the trade links between Spain and Belgium and emphasized “the excellent economic and institutional relation” hold by both countries. “2.000.000 Belgian citizens visit Spain every year”, commented Mayeur as he recognized that this type of relations among EU member countries “make Europe stronger and more united in front of the separatist movements”.

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Mayeur also insisted on the existing international presence in Brussels: “this city is an example of the diversity in Europe”. For that reason, the Mayor stated that it is necessary, despite adversities, to “look positively to the future”.

For its part, and in the same direction, the business representative of the Spanish Embassy in Belgium, Jorge Notivoli, also spoke at the event encouraging the attendees to work together to collaborate in the development of the city, after the negative events in Brussels.

Regarding the Spanish situation, Notivoli commented that the country is economically recovering: “we will reach the levels prior to the beginning of the crisis soon”.

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After these speeches, the attendees enjoyed a Spanish haute cuisine dinner offered by the Gastronomic Director of the new restaurant Hispania Brussels, Marcos Morán, who holds a Michelin Star and three “Soles Repsol”, served with the Spanish wines of La Buena Vida. Afterwards, Moran and his team presented the Hispania Brussels project, the new Spanish gastronomic restaurant located in the emblematic Sablon neighborhood of Brussels.

The resident group in the Cervantes Institute of Brussels, The New Baroque Times, lived up the dinner with a musical performance. The event finished with a raffle of our associated companies’ products and services, for which we thank their collaboration.

We would like to thank all the attendees for joining us.

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Luncheon-debate with the Head of Economic and Market Analysis of the European Stability Mechanism (EMS), Juan Rojas

The Official Spanish Chamber of Commerce in Belgium and Luxembourg hold on the 24th November in the Cercle Münster of Luxembourg a luncheon-debate with the Head of Economic and Market Analysis of the European Stability Mechanism (EMS) Juan Rojas, about “Accessing sovereign markets and current trends in ex-programme EFSF/ESM countries”.

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The event was attended by representatives from Spanish and international companies, as well as by members of the Chamber, and began with the intervention of the Vice-President of the Chamber, Sergio de Miguel-Jessel. He thanked the assistance to both the speaker and the attendees and made a quick review of the professional background of Rojas.

Juan Rojas began his speech explaining that during the crisis several countries lost access to the market (Portugal, Cyprus, Ireland and Greece). In the case of Spain, he highlighted the tightening of financial conditions in an environment marked by the doubts about the financial system. That created the need to ask for ESM’s financial assistance, which has a specific role for this sector of the economy. Hereafter, the speaker summarised the analysis of the strategies followed by the countries to recover (Portugal, Ireland and Cyprus) or to strengthening (Spain) investors’ confidence, because in his opinion, this is especially relevant to face effectively periods of volatility in the financial market.

The first step towards that strategy consisted on the adoption of the measures included in the programmes (the MoUs). The ultima goal was to have healthy public finances, a sustainable public debt and structural reforms to enhance the potential growth of the economies and improve the efficiency of the economic system.

Rojas commented that these activities led to the recovery and strengthening communication lines with the market participants and have a more regular contact with them, which allowed to identify the market segments where there was a sufficient demand. “This permanent contact gave market access to the treasuries with punctual and irregular operations, and the syndications geared to lengthening the existing profile in the short term and generate reliance on the country’s capacity”.

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The Head of Economic and Market Analysis also pointed out some of the measures that were adopted to enhance the role of market creators (financial institutions with the purpose of encouraging market liquidity in the secondary market of public debt): search for potential demand, give liquidity to the secondary market and haven access to a wide range of investors.

Finally, the speaker highlighted that in the countries they lost investment-grade credit rating like Portugal, Ireland and Cyprus, an effort was made to generate a liquidity basis to complete the programmes with the financing necessities covered in the short term (around a year). “The objective was to reduce exposure to the market volatility”, he explained. All this process was accompanied by the BCE decisive action and the extension of the amortization deadlines of the EFSF/ESM loans, with easier financing needs.

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Juan Rojas then replied in detail to the questions raised by the Spanish Ambassador in Luxembourg, Mr. Carlos Maria de Lojendio y Pardo Manuel de Villena, and by the President of the Chamber, Juan Rodriguez-Villa Matons.

The event finished with the handing over of a gift to Rojas by courtesy of the Chamber, in recognition of his labor as Head of Economic and Market Analysis of the European Stability Mechanism (EMS).

We would like to thank the collaboration of the winery Salferso Wine, who offered the wine in the event.

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