“A collective success”: the governor of the Banque de France François Villeroy de Galhau welcomed Thursday the “spectacular” attractiveness of the Parisian financial center since Brexit, a phenomenon which has helped to support the French trade surplus on trade in services in 2022.
The success of post-Brexit Paris is spectacular and has accelerated over the recent period, he was delighted on the occasion of the presentation of a report by the Banque de France on commercial exchanges of goods and services with foreign countries in 2022.
Most major international banks have increased their Paris workforce by several hundred, the governor said. There is an element of collective success and we are not at the end of this dynamic.
According to him, several factors explain the increased attractiveness of Paris: the presence of many regulators (EBA, ACPR, ESMA), the vast spectrum of financial activities offered in the French capital and the fact that the Paris Stock Exchange has become the first capitalization in Europe, ahead of London and Frankfurt.
As of June 30, the value of the shares of companies listed on the Paris market reached more than 3,000 billion euros, against 2,770 billion euros for the financial heart of London.
However, this estimate does not take into account the many areas where the City retains its supremacy, such as the currency market, precious metals or derivatives.
According to its central bank, France recorded a surplus of 10.4 billion euros in 2022 on financial services, after a surplus of 8.8 billion in 2021.
In total, the French surplus on trade in services reached 52 billion euros in 2022, in particular thanks to the usual dynamism of tourist receipts and the excellent year of maritime transport, a priori more cyclical.
But at the same time, Paris recorded an abysmal deficit of 137.3 billion euros on the exchange of goods, which is explained by the exorbitant cost of fossil fuel imports in 2022 when world gas and electricity prices have exploded.
Our results are even more asymmetrical than usual: mediocre on the goods side and much better on the services side, summed up Franois Villeroy de Galhau.
By 2025, the balance of trade in goods and services should remain very negative despite a slower widening of the deficit since the fourth quarter of 2022, according to data from the Banque de France.