CFC Talks with the WAIFC leaders
In the context of our AGM in Morocco, several WAIFC representatives participated in the new CFC talk at the CFC tower, co-moderated by Manal Bernoussi, Casablanca Finance City, and Jochen Biedermann, our Managing Director. This was the occasion for our members to share insights linked to the collaboration between financial centers.
Jennifer Reynolds, Chair of the World Alliance of International Financial Centers (WAIFC):
"International financial markets are interrelated, they are interdependent. No matter what continent you are, and no matter what financial center you are in, you need to know what’s happening elsewhere in the world, and we need to cooperate and that will allow us to be much more efficient in terms of supporting our economies."
Keiichi Aritomo, Executive Director of FinCity.Tokyo (東京国際金融機構):
" Finance is like a blood circulation for the entire economy. We have very substantial supply chains encompassing entire Asia. The role of a financial center is to provide a solution to ensure that blood circulation is sufficient across the entire economy, that's why we established a financial center in Tokyo.”
Nick Barigye, CEO of Kigali International Financial Centre:
“Rwanda and Africa have got enormous opportunities but the challenge to the global West is the perceptions around risk compared to returns. In financial centers such as Kigali International Financial Center and CFC, we offer a legal and regulatory framework that creates an enabling environment. Financial centers play an intermediation role to create the security that is needed to be able to attract capital to different sectors from agriculture to health to education and infrastructure.”
Hubertus Väth, Managing director of Frankfurt Main Finance:
“The world, being now 4.6 billion years old and if we condense that to 46 years, human beings have been on earth only for the last four hours and industrialization only started a minute ago and yet we consumed 50% of forests and half of the natural capital. We have to change the way we work and the role ISSB plays is to set the global baseline in sustainability reporting. We have to speak a common language and that's why Frankfurt Main Finance made it a particular effort to get the ISSB into Frankfurt. We have a broad backing and the clear will to play a leading role in Green Finance.”
Miles Celic, CEO of the TheCityUK:
“London is a massively successful international financial center that has a huge number of high-value jobs that provide services and economic activity for the UK and for many countries around the world. 2/3 of the jobs in financial services and professional services in the UK are outside London. Half of the exports in the UK are the most successful exports services in the world. Half of those exports come from outside London.”
Rocky Tung, Director and Head of policy research at Hong Kong Financial Services Development Council:
“Since 2016, the FSCC has been very active in promoting the development of green and sustainable Finance in our city. Therefore, we have advised the government to launch a green Bond and to consider its duration. With our unique system from the legal point of view, the taxation standpoint and how we are free of capital control, I think Hong Kong will continue to be unique. The interconnectivity between Hong Kong and the rest of China will continue to increase and that is certainly going to be quite conducive to our future development. Hong Kong will remain similar to where we are right now but with an enhanced capability.”
Timur Onzhanov, Deputy CEO of Astana International Financial Centre:
“We have created the tech Hub which is a center of excellence and a point of integration for new ideas for innovative projects. We have a sandbox regulatory regime for FinTech companies since we have over 40 companies that have been authorized in the ecosystem. Among the 1 600 companies of the AIFC ecosystem, only 1% is coming from the African continent. Jointly with CFC, we can promote the participants in both markets to facilitate the cross-border collaboration for the new VC and the FinTech companies.”