"Serbia is good place for investments"

"Serbia is good place for investments"

The company headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden, has at its disposal EUR 2.9 billion in public and private equity and real estate. Although Serbia is among the cheap investment areas, due to falling labor costs in Greece and in markets with higher purchasing power, such as Spain, these countries are competitors to the Serbian market.

"Serbia is still early in the process of joining the European Union. We have the experiences of those countries that joined in 2004 and 2007 and we saw the differences in these economies before and after accession. Joining the EU in itself provides different business environment for companies wishing to invest in those economy,"says Peter Elam Hakansson, East Capital's chairman.

East Capital representatives were received by Minister for Construction, Transportation and Infrastructure Zorana Mihajlović. One of the managers of the company, Jacob Grapengiesser, emphasizes that it is important to believe in the country in which investment is made.

"It is important to believe in the growth and structure of the state and then you start looking for companies that are interesting. We found in Serbia several such companies. Serbia is today the cheapest investment area and is very attractive to us," he stated.

While in Belgrade, the leaders of the company held a business forum with Serbian businesspeople and visited B92, in which they own a part of the capital. They said they were interested in further investments in the country.

"Privatization is generally a good thing. Companies should be in the stock market, because it then allows the citizens of Serbia to invest in those companies and in the long run profits from them. We have a significant stake in the Ljubljana airport and will consider the same with the Belgrade airport," says Grapengiesser.

They point out that the floods in Serbia, though terrible, should not spoil the investment climate.

"I think it will not change the opinion of investors about Serbia as a good place to invest money. It's sad what happened, but Serbia remains a place where to bring capital and natural disasters cannot change that."

The leading people of East Capital concluded that political stability in Serbia was needed for investments.