Our intensive and persistent work for the search for investors, the worldwide marketing and the belief in the Balkans countries like Serbia, Montenegro, Albania and North Macedonia has in the end been honored and proven, according to Uwe Zirbes, board member of GCI UNIT. I came to Belgrade for the first time in 2016 and was very impressed by the beauty of the city, as well as the people who live there together with different nationalities. If there had not been a special reason, I would never have come to Belgrade because of the negative prejudices. But everything I heard from the media, everything that has been written and said about this country over the years, all the negativity, has been completely changed into positive and to reality, within a short time. You have to see and experience the Balkans and especially Belgrade, Podgorica, Tirana and Skopje before you can tell and report on it.

 

Today, after three years of intensive work, I can confirm that, in my opinion, as an internationally experienced businessman who has already seen and got to know the whole world, the perfect place to live and to invest, which is confirmed by the successful number of my clients as direct investors. I knew it after only a few weeks and have informed my complete network of business people about it. In addition, I have operated worldwide marketing in Asia, Middle East, Europe and Africa. It was very difficult even in the first two years because almost nobody knew where Serbia is. Many still thought that it was in Africa and compared it to Zambia. My enlightenment work started, so to speak, discovering Serbia to many people from zero.

Many of my colleagues and friends thought I was crazy, people I talked to in Serbia asked me what I was doing here. Why from Dubai to Serbia? Everyone wants to get out of Serbia and I’m coming in?! As a businessman and manager, I see things differently, I see the solutions easier, because I’m from outside and I’m not stuck in the possibilities. It’s like having an experienced interim manager to take on when the company has no way out and needs a different perspective to find a solution. If your own resources within a country are not enough to satisfy the population, you need other managers, companies, top people who built something in their own country, started up companies so that the young talents and people find a job, completing a circle of life, in a way. And that’s what I do all my life. With my then-founded company, I helped more than 17,000 top managers and companies to find a new challenge while freeing companies from trouble. And that was worldwide. Over the past 26 years, I have built up a network of corporations, large companies and medium-sized companies from China, UAE, Asia and, of course, Europe, and through this cooperation also gained insight into different cultures and mentalities.

Check my other article about Serbia’s rising FDI attraction: GREENFIELD FDI PERFORMANCE INDEX 2019: SERBIA STORMS TO TOP

“With Montenegro, a new attractive European program will significantly diversify and expand the global citizenship market for investment. This program has the potential to create a series of truly significant cash injections for itself in an economy and as a forerunner of more strategic investments that can help to modernize and diversify the economies of often smaller states and create a better life for them.” explains Zirbes, Board Advisor at GCI.

Of course, some people in Serbia were and still are dissatisfied with the situation, they want to emigrate to Germany and other countries. But I’m sure that all of them will come back! Please do not misunderstand me now, I have nothing to do with politics, I do not want it either and certainly can not allow a professional judgment.

However, considering it neutral as an outsider, pure as a businessman with open eyes, from the long-standing global experience elsewhere, Serbia has developed far better in the short time after the Comunism and the time of corruption and the subsequent war than any other country what i know. And if someone wants to compare themselves with Germany, then please also calculate the time that Germany needed after the war. Serbia made it half of the time. I go even further and claim that today is already foreseeable that Germany is going down steeply and Serbia will increase more and more in the attractiveness. Germany has 20 times more companies per year who run away, than Serbia have companies who come inside as direct investors! The media does not report that. The people who invest in Serbia today, who stay there, and those who develop and invest their inventions and ideas in their own country will be the winners. Everyone else will come back to Serbia.
And if special people bring some advantage to the country in any way that meets the criteria of Article 19, then they get a further civic citizenship so they can not stay in the country for 60 days just like a tourist, but build up their business and accompany, so I think that’s a good idea, which has been to say at this point, my own! I presented this proposal to the government. I presented this proposal to the government in Serbia, Montenegro, Albania and North Macedonia.
Unfortunately until today, such a law of citizenship by investment, not yet maked or even passed. – Only in Montenegro!
Especially in the countries like Serbia and North Macedonia, as well as in Montenegro, I was able to present investors to the government and advertise worldwide, which I have obviously done well. And that is exactly my goal, I want to take care of it and help, with my influence and network, that at least 20,000 people get new jobs, I do not want to bring hundreds but far more companies to the Balkans, thus making the Balkans stronger than never before. Every person should have a reason why he lives on this planet. We were all winners in the beginning, what everyone makes of his life after that is attributable to himself.
I want to leave the world better than I found it, I want to make a difference. And I know from my own experience, you can achieve a lot if you believe in the goals you set, and work on it. I wish that the young people believe in themselves and Serbia, as others Investors and Managers from outside do.