PARIS (Reuters) - French President Emmanuel Macron will treat close to two dozen leaders of international investment funds to dinner at his Elysee palace premises on Wednesday to promote France as an investment destination, officials said.
For Macron, who worked for a spell as an investment banker, it is a way to show investors he has delivered on his first batch of pro-business reforms, including one of the labour market and one scrapping a wealth tax, they said.
"We have passed the first hurdles, on the labour market reform or the vote on the budget. It's the good moment to do it," an advisor to Macron said.
"International investors feel like Europe is back and that France holds the leadership," the advisor said.
Some 21 global heads of sovereign funds, investment and pension funds from North America, Asia, Europe and the Middle East will attend the dinner in the Winter Garden, a glass-roofed room of the Elysee Palace, with Macron.
They are set to meet France's finance and economy ministers and advisors before the meal with Macron.
Representatives of BlackRock, the world's largest asset manager, will attend, a spokeswoman for the U.S. fund told Reuters.
The presidential advisor, who requested anonymity, said Britain's exit from the European Union was also an opportunity to promote France as a destination at the heart of the European single market.
"It's clear we're going towards a hard Brexit," the advisor said. "It's an opportunity for continental Europe, and we're also playing our card because we have political and economic momentum," he said.