One of the most high-profile speakers was Bader al-Saad, Managing Director of Kuwait’s $250bn Sovereign Wealth Fund, the Kuwait Investment Authority. He said that US and European plans to make SWFs more transparent could threaten the global economy, and accused those pushing for a Code of Conduct for SWFs of “placing handcuffs” on state investments, at a time when SWFs were helping to alleviate the worst effects of the Credit Crunch.

Another speaker, David Wright, Deputy Director-General at the European Commission, argued that the proposals weren’t an attempt to ‘impose’ new regulation, more an effort towards “voluntarily formalizing what already happens in practice”.

Other speakers putting their views before the 70 international guests included Dmitriy Pankin, Deputy Minister of Finance of the Russian Federation.

Michael Quigley, European Managing Director of Sovereign Strategy, said the event had been an ‘enormous’ success. “The calibre of the speakers and the quality of the discussion was incredibly high. The scrutiny of SWFs is a massive issue at the moment, and that generated broad press interest in the conference. I’d like to thank Jeannot Krecké and the Luxembourg government as well as all our speakers and guests. We look forward to organizing the 2nd Luxembourg Foreign Trade Conference soon,” he said.