Mårten Andersson Productions

Public Finance International has published an article on their website about the creation of Agence France Locale. Read the article here.

A couple of days ago, on the 22nd of October, the Agence France Locale was created during a meeting in Paris. These are the  11 founding members of the agency:

Region Pays-de-la-Loire
Département d’Aisne
Département d’Essonne
Département de Savoie
Communautés Urbaines de Lille
Communautés Urbaines de Lyon
Communautés Urbaines de Valenciennes
Communautés Urbaines de Vallée-de-la-Marne
Ville de Bordeaux
Ville de Grenoble
Ville de Lons-le-Saunier

Among the representatives of the founding members were Jacques Pélissard, Chairman of the Mayors Association, Gérard Collomb, Chairman of Grand Lyon, Michel Destot, Mayor of Grenoble, Alain Juppe, Mayor of Bordeaux and ex-Prime Minister.

An important group of French politicians and and high ranking civil servants joined for a lunch to celebrate the creation of Agence France Locale. Among the guest were Anne-Marie Escoffier, Deputy Minister for local government, Philip Yvin, advisor to the Prime Minister. Furthermore, a group of foreign guest were present: Gunnar Lund, Swedish Ambassador to France, Daniel Goodwin, Executive Director of the English Local Government Association, Alf Egnerfors, Vice-president of the Board of Kommuninvest Cooperative Society, Pekka Averio, CEO of Munifin and Henning Schoppmann, General Secretary of European Association of Public Banks.

Ron Walkier, CEO of Nederlandse Waterschapsbank  (NWB), sent the following message: ”wish the newly born a successful and prosperous future”.

Craig Stobo, President of the Board of New Zealand LGFA, sent the following message: ” the NZ Local Government Funding Agency warmly welcomes Agence France Locale to the funding agency ”club”, acknowledges the hard work that you have done to get here, and wishes it every prosperity.”

At the press conference,  Marylise Lebranchu, Minister for Local Government, joined and gave the Governments support for the new agency. I was also asked to make some remarks (which can be read here) to the members of the press.

On the 22nd of October the first General Assembly of the new French Local Government Funding Agency, Agence France Locale, will take place in Paris. This will mark the end of several years of preparations and the starting point of the new agency.

In an article in Local Government Chronicle, Lars M Andersson puts forward arguments for a British Municipal Bond Agency.

Read the article here.

Local Government Chronicle’s Chief Reporter Ruth Keeling has interview Lars M Andersson about the need for a British Municipal Bond Agency.

Link to the article.

The LGA yearly conference was held in Manchester 2 – 4 July. On the last day of the conference there was a seminar about LGA’s project to create a local government bond agency chaired by Cllr Robert Light, Council Leader of  Kirklees and Deputy Chairman of the LGA . Speakers were Sir Merrick Cockell, LGA Chairman, and Lars M Andersson.

Local authorities create growth. That was the starting point of Lars M. Andersson’s speech. As one example British local authorities are responsible for around 50 % of all public investments in the country. Mr. Andersson then presented the existing agencies in the world, with an emphasis on how the European agencies are structured. He then made an overview of recent event including the creation of a French local government funding agency. Finally Mr. Andersson encouraged the English local authorities to push on with their project, so that we will soon see a new agency for local finance.

Sir Merrick reiterated his commitment to the project and urged the local authorities to state their interest in created a bond agency. After the seminar Sir Merrick was interviewed by Public Finance. Read the article here.

The English Local Government Association (LGA) holds their yearly conference in Manchester during 2-4 July. One of the seminars will be about the project to create a collective municipal bonds agency. This seminar will be chaired by Cllr Edward Lord and the chairman of the LGA, Sir Merrick Cockell and Lars M. Andersson will be speaking.

The French business newspaper Les Echos reported on Friday last week that the National Assembly now has approved the plans to create a French local government funding agency. This means that the agency will formally be created later this year. In a comment to Les Echos, Rollon Mouchel-Blaisot, the director of the Association des maires de France, said ”We want to finish with some monopolies, such as Dexia, which had known adverse effects”. And the President, Jacques Pélissard, of the same organisation adds ” local authorities  that are not in a healthy financial situation will not be admitted into the agency,”