Maria Cannata Italian Treasury

Norbert Mayer BMW

Petros Christodoulou PDMA Frank Czichowski KfW George Richardson World Bank

Dates for The Global Borrowers & Investors Forum 2011: 21-22 June, Hilton on Park Lane, London.

The Euromoney Global Borrowers & Investors Forum 2010 once again attracted the who’s who of debt capital markets. The biggest borrowers and investors in the world gathered under the cloud of a possible public debt crisis causing jitters in markets. They heard from all those in charge of the key sovereign debt programmes in the US, Japan, Germany, France, Italy, Spain and Greece.

The forum opened on Tuesday morning with Petros Christodoulou of the Greek PDMA updating the audience on the current situation in Greece and the measures being taken there to get the fiscal problems under control. This interview was followed by a panel analysing the threat of a large scale crisis, the possible collapse of the euro and the likely ups and downs for bond markets in the next 12 months. On Wednesday morning, the focus shifted east as H.E. Andrius Kubilius, Prime Minister of Lithuania, addressed the challenges still facing the CEE economies, and how Lithuania has tackled its difficulties head on so far. Later that morning, a panel debated the key measures for ‘fixing finance’ – for the future for the banking system and international regulation. Panels of corporate, emerging market, FIG and supranational and agency borrowers took their turns to talk about their markets too.

Overall, the two days of discussion reassured that bond markets are still open and functioning but nervousness remained. Throughout the two days of the forum, participants stressed that significant risks remained for markets, as well as for leading economies.

We are looking forward already to the 2011 Forum when we will reconvene to find out whether the fears for a full-blown public debt crisis are exaggerated, and to find out how the global banking sector is coping with refinancing pressures.

Euromoney would like to thank all sponsors, speakers and delegates for helping to make the Global Borrowers and Investors Forum such a success once again.