Dear AmCham members, partners, and friends,
Welcome to the 157th edition of our AmCham weekly digital Newsletter! We are pleased to be giving you information and support during these challenging times.
My most sincere thanks to Mario De Stefano, the AmCham Real Estate committee team, EY, Bank Raiffeisen, David Arendt, and Laurent Mosar for putting on such an excellent event last Thursday evening identifying and discussing the affordable housing challenges faced by the business community!
Over the past several years there has been an ever-increasing migration of people driven by poverty and violence to flee their homes and immigrate into Europe and the United States. On both sides of the Atlantic ocean our hearts have gone out to the men, women and children impacted by these tragic circumstances and we have been generous providing safety, materiel support and welcome to these people in need.
Among the consequent results, in both Europe and America we are experiencing increased pressure on our medical, education and social services support systems, unforeseen budget cost increases, and diminished stocks of affordable housing (leading to an almost 24% increase in rent here in Luxembourg).
Here in Luxembourg we have been blessed and greatly benefited by having a huge international business sector which is at least ten times the size one would normally expect to exist in a population of 600,000 inhabitants. This outsized international business environment pays the taxes which have allowed us to enjoy the prosperity and quality of life we all enjoy and have come to expect.
Over the many years this international business sector has been developing, the requirements for employees have consistently exceeded the available Luxembourg supply resulting in business-driven immigration which sees Luxembourg hosting 50% of its inhabitants coming from foreign countries.
Over the years, Luxembourg has concentrated on building family housing with over 90% of housing stock falling into this category. The severe shortage of housing targeting the needs of single people is now making it difficult for the international business community to hire and bring into Luxembourg this category of much needed new employees. We undertook this affordable housing event to focus attention on identifying, discussing, and solving the micro-housing challenges faced by these single, well-educated workers needed by international business community to ensure our continued prosperity. AmCham is committed to and will place an ongoing priority on solving this problem.
We are very pleased this week to offer you an interview with Miriam Eisenmenger – CEO of ACL, the Luxembourg automobile club. This club offers a full range of beneficial transportation solutions and we in AmCham encourage you all to join this excellent organization. They have worked and are working hard to adjust and adapt their offerings to fit the needs of their customers. Enjoy this informative interview article!
Last week Daniel McKenzie and I paid a courtesy call on the CEO of SES and complimented him on his leadership of this globally important made in Luxembourg company. We will be pleased to share an interview with him in the New Year. We also used this trip outside of Luxembourg City as an opportunity to pay a courtesy call on Bibi Wintersdorf and her Kachen team. Bibi is an amazing woman with an amazing success story. In addition to our partnership together to share weekly food recipes, we look forward to feature interviewing her for our weekly Newsletter in the near future.
We are delighted to offer our AmCham-affiliated crowd the opportunity to register and participate in the upcoming Indian Association of Luxembourg Diwali festival dinner celebration in two weeks’ time at the same registration costs as Indian Association of Luxembourg members! Please see the details here.
Our annual Thanksgiving party is fully sold out! Big thanks to all who are joining us. As a courtesy, we still accept waiting list signups in the event of any last-minute cancelations. Please contact Daniel@amcham.lu if you are interested.
We are relaunching our ABAL lunches with two great offering. Our friend and expert on company culture, Marc Jacobs, Managing Partner at The Culture Factor Belux, will join us on Monday, November 4th at the DoubleTree by Hilton Luxembourg and Laura Foulds, the CEO of Analie Tax & Accounting will share her tax saving updates and advice in our annual joint lunch with the British Chamber of Commerce on Wednesday, November 13th at the DoubleTree by Hilton Luxembourg. See all of the details on these two events (and more!) below.
To those of you readers who are AmCham members; I offer my warmest thanks! To those of you who are not, please feel free to contact me at Paul@amcham.lu and let me have the opportunity to convince you that you should join our family!
With respect and my very best wishes,
Paul Schonenberg
Chairman and CEO
AmCham.lu
