Chamber of Commerce
In this video, Carlo Thelen introduces the aim and the services of the Chamber of Commerce: promote economic development in Luxembourg thanks to a range of mesures and services.
Carlo Thelen is the General Director of the Chamber of Commerce. Find their services on cc.lu.
Subtitles are available in english and french.
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Transcription de l'intervention de Carlo Thelen
Why the Chamber of Commerce?
The Chamber of Commerce was created a very long time ago in 1841. At that time, I think the concept was to create an institution or a designated spokesperson for businesses. It was a time when the country was very poor, it needed economic growth and the policymakers of the time thought “If we need economic growth, we also need strong companies, so we need a strong spokesperson to represent all of those companies.”
What do you do?
We’re active in legislative work. We can make legislative proposals and we give our opinion on all bills and grand-ducal regulations that have a direct or indirect impact on companies. So, we’re a sort of lobbyist or promoter of pro-business economic environments. Along that line, support is also needed for people wanting to start a company and not just start a company but also develop it, internationalize it or even transfer it. So, we try to cover the full lifecycle of a company and to be active in that area.
To be specific?
We develop products and services that respond to companies’ needs, which are constantly changing. To give you a few examples: right now, digitalization is a key focus, so we developed Go Digital that is a huge success. We just passed the initiative’s one-year marker and we have surpassed all our expectations. It’s a service where we raise awareness but also provide training and more in-depth consulting for companies of all sizes looking to go digital. We have an array of that type of services, as well as guidance, consulting, the whole internationalization aspect where we have great tools like Market Intelligence, the various expos, missions, hosting delegations, so to promote the economic development aspect. And of course, we’re a key player in terms of training, I think that is very important. Three years ago, we launched the House of Training. We created the Institut Supérieur de I’Economie and we’re also a major player for vocational and initial training.
In short?
I think that to summarize the actions of the Chamber of Commerce, I would use three F’s: Facilitator, Federator and Force for bringing forward proposals.