Bosnia Bank International (BBI) CEO Amer Bukvic told the N1 that the Sarajevo Business Forum is changing the image of the region.

“We lived in Socialism where private capital wasn’t always a welcome notion in people’s minds. I believe that time is behind us and that we must fight for the private capital. We must fight for the new capital in order to create new values, a new climate,” said Bukvic. “I think we’ve made a big step forward. Now we have a general consensus that there is no alternative to investments and this Forum confirms it.”

Speaking about the projects to be presented at the Forum, Bukvic claims they gathered 225 projects for this year’s Forum.

“The Forum now lasts throughout the year, we’re bringing investors throughout the year. This Forum will be just one big event, but our efforts on bringing new investors will continue throughout the year. We will improve the unfinished projects and continue promoting them during the next SBF, starting from the next month.”

Tourism is one of the main focuses of the Forum. More than 60 projects will be presented at the forum.

“We speak of tourism but we haven’t solved the visa regime issue. We haven’t solved the issue of opening new airlines, the issue of a national airline company, etc. There are many outstanding issues, however, I also think a great progress has been made. Bosnia has made an average tourist growth of 14 percent in the past 10 years. We have tripled the number of tourists in Bosnia since the first SFB,” Bukvic said.

According to Bukvic, bright future is ahead of Bosnia. That is what the organizers and the participants at the Forum are working on. BBI Bank is the organizer of the Sarajevo Business Forum and N1 is the regional media partner of the Forum.

The ninth Sarajevo International Business Forum (SBF), which hosts a large number of officials and business people from the region and the world, commenced today in Sarajevo, giving them an opportunity to get acquainted with the business and investment opportunities in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the countries of the region.

The focus of this year’s Forum is the joint solution to the use of potentials in the field of energy, education, IT, agriculture and tourism. The aim of the Forum is to link and present all the natural and human resources of the region and to open the foreign markets to Bosnian and regional companies.

The motto of this year’s forum is “One Region, One Economy.”