“As independent states, we are small markets but as the West Balkan with nearly 20 million people, we can be a very attractive space for very serious investments,” said the chairman of the Council of Ministers of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) Denis Zvizdic, who is attending an informal meeting of prime ministers of Western Balkans countries in Durres, whose host is the prime minister of the Republic of Albania Edi Rama.
Zvizdic highlighted that the focus of today’s meeting in Durres is strengthening economic cooperation of the countries of the Western Balkans and that the Commissioner for European Neighbourhood Policy of the European Union Johannes Hahn and the vice president of the World Bank for Europe and Central Asia Cyril Muller, as representatives of the institutions which significantly participate in the financing of projects in BiH and the region.
It’s a fact that significant barriers exist, but Zvizdic says that at the meeting it was determined that there exists a large space for further developing trade as well as implementation and realization of important investment projects which would have a regional character.
“We’re all firstly oriented towards activities on the path towards European integration, but surely those activities also mean strengthening the competitiveness of the Western Balkans,” emphasized Zvizdic.
The participants of today’s meeting in Durres announced that the organizers of the next conference will be presented with serious investment projects of a regional character with are of interest to all.
“We’ll discuss an easier path towards European funds by Western Balkans countries since the opinion that the Western Balkans is maturing that the Western Balkans must fasten the dynamic of the path to the European Union,” Zvizdic concluded.
The goal of today’s informal meeting of prime ministers of the Western Balkan countries in Durres is strengthening regional cooperation and closing the gap between the EU and the Western Balkans.
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