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Luxembourg, Russia decide to create investment fund for developing green technologies

Deputy Prime Minister of Luxembourg Etienne Schneider noted that now Luxembourg is the fifth largest investor in the Russian economy

Deputy Prime Minister of Luxembourg Etienne Schneider EPA-EFE/STEPHANIE LECOCQ

Deputy Prime Minister of Luxembourg Etienne Schneider

© EPA-EFE/STEPHANIE LECOCQ

LUXEMBOURG, March 7. /TASS/. Russia and Luxembourg decided to create an investment fund to finance the development of environmentally friendly technologies in Russia, Deputy Prime Minister of Luxembourg Etienne Schneider said in an interview with TASS, commenting on the results of the visit of Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev on March 5-6.

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"We have decided to launch an investment fund to invest in Russian ‘green technologies’, in particular using the ‘green bonds’ tool," he said.

He noted that during the negotiations with the Russian side, great attention was paid to expanding opportunities for cooperation in investment and finance, which are Luxemboutg’s "specialty", as the banking capital of the continental part of the European Union.

"With Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana Golikova, and our Minister of Finance Pierre Gramegna decided to expand the agenda of the next meeting of Mixed Commission on economic cooperation between Russia and the Belgian-Luxembourg Economic Union by including the finance segment into it. We cooperate a lot in this area, there are direct investment funds that allocate money to the Russian economy, but there are also Russian banks that are active here in Luxembourg. Therefore, we have decided to discuss how we can further improve conditions for our financial cooperation," Schneider added.

He noted that now Luxembourg is the fifth largest investor in the Russian economy. "We happened to enter the top three, but this is normal, the level of investment is not linear, it can vary from year to year depending on specific projects. Last year, the level of investment was 20 bln euro, but we had years when this figure reached 50 and even 60 bln euro. I would like to emphasize that Russia is a very interesting partner for us and a very attractive economy for our investments," Schneider said.

Following Dmitry Medvedev’s visit, Russia and Luxembourg approved joint intergovernmental declaration on cooperation in modernizing the economic field and signed a protocol of the meeting of the Russian-Luxembourg commission for cooperation in culture for 2019-2021.

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