There was strong interest at the second KfW Capital Markets Conference on Energy and Infrastructure, held in cooperation with Deutsche Bank in Frankfurt am Main. The event gathered around 200 participants, including 50 institutional investors from Germany and abroad, representing a global investment volume of over ten trillion euros. Attendance increased by about 20 percent compared to the previous year.
The conference aimed to promote dialogue among financial sector representatives, energy companies, policymakers, and investors. It operated under the patronage of the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy. Organizers arranged approximately 60 bilateral meetings during the event to facilitate direct exchanges and encourage concrete project developments.
Investors attended from countries such as Germany, other EU nations, Norway, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, Australia, Japan, Canada, Singapore, and the United States. Since the first conference held in summer of the previous year, significant investments have been made in German energy infrastructure by entities from Canada, the Netherlands, Norway, Singapore, and the USA.
KfW and Deutsche Bank highlighted that strengthening capital markets is essential for supporting future investments in Germany’s energy sector and infrastructure. They emphasized that private capital will be increasingly necessary alongside public funds.
Christian Sewing, CEO of Deutsche Bank said: “Private capital is key to modernising our energy supply and our infrastructure as a whole, and to unleashing the potential of our economy. We see great interest from international investors in Germany as a business location. It is now important to create the right competitive conditions – and this includes strengthening our capital markets at both the national and European levels. At Deutsche Bank, we want to use our expertise and global network to help connect our home market with international financial markets, thereby enabling more investment and growth. In our view, this is what our country needs to achieve sustainably higher growth rates again.”
Stefan Wintels, CEO of KfW stated: “This conference provides important impulses for affordable, secure and clean energy supply in Germany. Significant investments will be required in the coming years for the expansion and modernisation of our infrastructure. Public capital alone will not suffice; we must mobilise significantly more private capital. Germany must increasingly focus on the economic efficiency of energy supply alongside achieving climate targets to maintain the competitiveness of the industrial location. Critical are the costs of the overall system encompassing generation, transport and storage to reliably provide the required energy quantities. Only an energy policy that is pragmatic, technology-open and market-oriented combines climate neutrality with economic competitiveness. For this, clear and reliable framework conditions as well as a realistic view of the financing needs are required.”