Lloyd’s is set to open its Brussels office in January 2019, according to reports.

In March 2017, the Corporation announced that it had chosen Brussels as the site for its post-Brexit EU base, with the new subsidiary able to write risks from all 27 European Union and three European Economic Area states after the United Kingdom has left the EU.

At a financial forum in Hong Kong, Lloyd’s CEO Inga Beale told Reuters: “We are hiring people, we hope to make some appointments shortly. We will have the Brussels subsidiary up and running by January 1, 2019.”

“That is ahead of the actual official exit, but we run a market and we want to be ready for all of our businesses and syndicates that operate within the market. That’s why we are really pushing ahead.”

Beale said that the application for setting up the Brussels subsidiary was with the Belgium regulator and that Lloyd’s is seeking office space and putting technology systems in place.

“The only thing that might change it is any sort of delay to an actual impact of Brexit,” she told the publication, referring to the launch plan.

On the hiring plans for the Brussels unit, Beale said: “It will be in the tens, probably, up to 40 or something”, adding that the group would also move some roles from other centres to the new subsidiary.

Lloyd‘s, which earns about 10 percent of its global revenue from insurance premiums underwritten in Asia Pacific, has also been expanding in the region and set up an onshore presence in India last year. Its major markets in the Asia Pacific region include China, Hong Kong, Japan and Singapore.

“It’s very, very important and we will be growing,” Beale said, referring to the Asia Pacific region, adding that there is growing demand for insurance providing coverage for political risk, terrorism and cyber breaches.