HOW CAN MUNICIPALITIES ATTRACT INVESTORS?

10. June 2013.

The project "Certificates of Municipalities with Favorable Business Environments in South East Europe" is of great importance for attracting investors, while it is also significant for the improvement of the operation of local governments, said the participants in the project, which involves 18 municipalities and cities in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia and Croatia.

The process of re-certification of the municipalities that were previously certified only at the national level is currently in progress in Serbia, and those municipalities include Bujanovac, Stara Pazova, Ruma, Pirot and Indjia.

Head of the Local Economic Development Office in Bujanovac, Fazila Azemovic, said that 50 percent of Bujanovac’s industrial zone was filled up, and that it included mostly empty halls, adding that a great potential for the development of the municipality was is in the area of thermal waters, since there were more than 30 such water sources in the area of the municipality.

The regional project of “Certificates of the Municipalities with Favorable Business Environments” was launched in 2011. It is conducted in the tradition of good examples of certification in Serbia, which has been carried out since 2007.

12 criteria were established, within which there are over 80 sub-criteria, while it is necessary to meet 75 percent of them for a municipality to be certified.

The project is organized by the National Alliance for Local Economic Development (NALED) and the Open Regional Fund for Modernization of Municipalities of the German Society for International Cooperation (GIZ), while it will be known who has met the requirements for certification at a conference in Zagreb, which will be held on June 12.

Source: Tanjug News Agency