The economy of the region could not wait for the politics to address the problems that had been prevailing for decades, and therefore the Chambers of Commerce and Industry of six Western Balkan economies, in the cooperation with the famous Financial Times, were going to organize for the first time a presentation of the potential of the Western Balkans as a single investment destination to global investors, in London, on 18 June, said Marko Čadež, CCIS President, and Western Balkans 6 Chamber Investment Forum (WB6 CIF) President, on Bled.
Čadež participated in the Austria Connect conference, representing also the Eurochambres Digitalization Committee, and sent a message that the region had to eliminate the barriers faster in order to get connected and to keep the pace with the 4.0 revolution. The business community of the region had its interest, Čadež said, underlining that the dialogue in the region had to be launched in order to boost additionally the economic growth.
„The common Regional Chamber is organizing, together with the Financial Times, in London, on 18 June, the event for big global investors, at which the region will be presented as a single investment destination with 20 million consumers“, announced Čadež.
According to him, the entire region has understood that the efforts should be made towards the dual education and creation of qualified staff, capable of using 4.0 technologies at work, whereby the state cannot have the monopoly in the creation of the education system any longer.
„The state has to do that together with the economy, if we wish to survive economically. Only if we are wise enough to look upon our region as a single market, we will ensure additional growth to our economies. Instead of thinking about the future, we have been dealing with the same issues for 18 years“, said the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Serbia President. With the aim to connect the economy and the region, as announced by Čadež, in the coming period, representatives of the Western Balkans Chambers of Commerce and Industry were going to visit Prizren and the building in which the Regional Innovation Centre should be established.
Secretary General of the Western Balkans 6 Chamber Investment, and the former Kosovo Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI) President, Safet Gerxhaliu, said that the gathering in Slovenia, at which the experts from many fields participated, proved that the region had much more clever businesspeople, sportsmen and musicians than politicians. „The biggest problem in this area is that you cannot talk about economic problems without political connotation“, said Gerxhaliu. He said that much more time was spent on embellishing the past than on building the future, and working on strengthening the economies that would keep young people in the region.
President of the Bled School of Management, Danica Purg , said that Serbia and the region had the enormous potential in IT sector, but that we had to look to the future, and invest more in start-ups, in order to reach the EU standards.