By Nevena Šarenac
Fourth International Investment Conference Sarajevo Business Forum 2013 called ‘Models of growth and lessons for Southeast Europe’ which was held today in Sarajevo hotel ‘Holiday’ was closed by Deputy Chairman of BiH Council of Ministers and BiH Minister of Foreign Affairs Zlatko Lagumdžija.
He said that participants of the forum had the chance to hear excellent recommendations on what BiH must do in order to attract foreign investments. Also, there were talks on infrastructure, energy sector, tourism and agriculture, which are priority fields for our country.
‘The most important thing we’ve heard was that countries made advantage of their diversities, and BiH must work on that, because diversity must not be seen as a flaw. Predictability and trust in institutions of the state is also important, and special attention must be given to political and institutional stability’, said Lagumdžija to journalists after closing the forum.
He believes that BiH has a chance for change and progress.
‘The first reason is the fact that the current situation must be changed, in other words, we must stop promoting segregation among people, because the entire world is uniting their differences. The other reason is the improvement of regional relations, which affects BiH positively’, said Lagumdžija.
He noted that in our country, leading world companies that cooperate with home companies.
‘Improvement in building the Corridor 5C is the best indicator of change. First class world companies cooperate with BiH companies thus making them competitive and they alone started doing works on 5C Corridor and thus created new jobs. Corridor 5C is a typical example where the state created space for investments in infrastructure and private sector is developing by building state projects’, said Lagumdžija
This year’s Sarajevo Business Forum gathered numerous people from political and economic life of BiH and the World, as well as representatives of diplomatic corps in our country.
BiH and its capital are becoming an interesting place for investors from the entire world, and Sarajevo Business Forum, organised by BBI Bank and Islamic Development Bank has become a tradition. Three previous conferences, dubbed by media as the most important economic event in contemporary BiH, hosted more than 1300 investors from Gulf countries, Europe, Asia and Americas and they had the opportunity to see projects from different fields.
Special guests of this year’s Sarajevo Business Forum were Deputy Prime Minister of Republic of Turkey Ali Babacan, fourth Prime Minister of Malaysia Tun Mahathir Mohammad, former President of Slovenia Danilo Turk, UAE Minister of Finances Obaid Humaid Al-Tayer and the forum was opened by manager of Sarajevo Business Forum Amer Bukvić and member of BiH Presidency Bakir Izetbegović.
