Higher, denser, faster: Minister Delles' plan for industrial estates

This article is provided to you free of charge. If you want to support our team, subscribe now.

He has just finished one meeting when Lex Delles, DP Minister for the Economy, Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs), Energy and Tourism, enters his office, where we have already spread out. A few more jokes during the portrait shots, then we are already talking about serious topics: the general economic situation in the country, the third social round on September 3, and the problem of economic activity areas.

In 2018, the now 40-year-old achieved ministerial honours for the first time. In the three-party coalition of DP, LSAP and déi gréng, he served as Minister for SMEs and Tourism.

Lëtzebuerger Journal: With a forecast of economic growth of no more than one per cent this year, the Chamber of Skilled Trades and Crafts recently described the country's economic situation as a "source of great concern" ("source de préoccupation majeure"). Do you share this assessment?

Lex Delles: Within this ministry, we share these concerns. The current growth is far from compensating for the recession we are coming out of. The national statistics institute Statec has since revised its forecast for 2025 (prepared in December 2024, ed.), which had predicted growth of 2.5 per cent. The EU Commission has also revised its forecast for the entire eurozone, including Luxembourg, downwards. The forecasts are in line with the development of unemployment, business start-ups and insolvencies, which we clearly feel in Luxembourg.

We are realising that the various crises we have experienced in recent years, be it Covid, inflation, energy, the uncertain situation in the Middle East, the war in Ukraine and not forgetting the USA (with regard to President Trump's trade policy, ed.); that all this brings uncertainty for the economy and contributes to the fact that we are no longer achieving the growth of more than three percent that we knew between 1994 and 2019, both in employment and at GDP level.