Luxembourg generates almost 2% of its GDP from the space industry, economy minister Etienne Schneider said at a conference in the US on Saturday.

During his speech at the New Worlds Conference in Texas, Schneider said space mining is a focus for Luxembourg, CNBC reported.

He said the Grand Duchy is applying the same strategy to attracting space companies as it did to boost its financial sector – by using the same "liberal, extremely business friendly climate".

Speaking to CNBC after the event, Schneider described Luxembourg's space resources initiative as a "series of measures to position Luxembourg as the European heart of exploration and use of space resources" and said the industry has "strong public support".

The deputy prime minister said space mining is Luxembourg's present focus and while he does not foresee the industry exceeding 2% of the GDP in the very near future, he said it "could be 5%, but that may be 10 or 15 years".

Earlier this year Luxembourg parliament adopted a draft law on the exploration and use of space resources, making the Grand Duchy the first European country to offer an official framework for private investors and operators.

It came into force on August 1 and acts as a legal and regulatory framework which ensures private operators ownership of the resources they extract from space and establishes procedures for authorising and supervising space exploration missions.

"Luxembourg is the first adopter in Europe of a legal and regulatory framework recognising that space resources are capable of being owned by private companies," Schneider said in a statement at the time.

According to data obtained in July from the economy ministry, the space industry employs more than 700 people in Luxembourg.

(Heledd Pritchard, heledd.pritchard@wort.lu, +352 49 93 459)