Dear AmCham Members, Partners, Newsletter readers and friends,
Welcome to the 190th issue of your AmCham Newsletter!
We are very pleased in this newsletter issue to publish an excellent interview with A&O Shearman Partner Franz Kerger, who is their lead expat recruitment tax expert on the use of tax incentives for talent attraction. We are all aware of the challenges faced by our international business community convincing the candidates they want to recruit to accept Luxembourg assignments. While those of us who are already here grow to love Luxembourg, there are challenges caused by the relatively high costs of living in Luxembourg. Fortunately, the Luxembourg government and particularly the Ministry of Finance are aware of the talent attraction challenges and have been motivated to develop solutions. To this end, the Luxembourg government has created and implemented a new arrival expat tax regime specifically focused on giving added tax inducements to benefit this target audience we are trying to recruit into Luxembourg. We are very appreciative to Mr. Kerger for writing and giving to us for publication this excellent article. We encourage interested parties to make sure they share this article with their recruitment personnel and Human Resources departments to make sure this information is appropriately used and shared with eligible candidates.
My compliments to our sister Italian, French and British Chambers of Commerce for their excellent hosting of a dinner event with our Prime Minister, Luc Frieden at the Hemicycle two weeks ago. Fabio Morvilli, the long serving Chairman of the Italian Chamber of Commerce, did an excellent job moderating the event and I was pleased to be well seated with AmCham members at a nicely located table. In his speech Mr. Frieden confirmed the pro-business focus of his government while also acknowledging there was much more to do.
During the summer holiday period, I also spent a week in Cluj Romania during which I had the opportunity to spend time with an organization which supports local Romanian tech sector independents to help them improve their business engagement skills and find work throughout Europe. I was impressed by the high quality and motivation of both the members and the management team running the organization. Later on, in this newsletter please find and read the interview I did with the head of their organization and see their perspectives, insights and actions as they deal with many of the same challenges which also impact independents here in Luxembourg. After they are done editing the podcast I did with them, we will publish that as well.
As you look through the event agenda published later in this newsletter, you will see we have an exceptionally busy November event schedule, which is partially arranged to welcome our new US Ambassador, Stacey Feinberg, who is due to arrive in Luxembourg at the very end of this month. Please register and join us for our Transatlantic Trade and Investment event at Deloitte on the evening of 12 November, which likely will be one of the very first public events at which Ambassador Feinberg will speak.
Please enjoy all of the rest of our Newsletter content and be assured we work every day to serve and support you and your companies… and to keep Luxembourg strong!
My respect and very best wishes,
Paul Schonenberg
AmCham.lu