Members of the SBA Board met with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Novi Sad on January 26, 2018.

The meeting was attended by Mr Danko Vukovic, Chairman, Mr Sasa Vitosevic, Mr Dragan Zukic and Mr Goran Knezevic of the SBA, Mrs Maja Matejic of UNDP and two representatives of Energy Saving Group, a company hired by UNDP to identify barriers facing investors in different stages of the implementation of 6 projects supported by UNDP grants.

The topics of technical barriers and their elimination were discussed at the meeting. The UNDP was of the view that there were two types of barriers, namely, barriers to financing of projects and technical barriers. Mgrs. Matejic said that the investors had different experiences in the construction phase, some had problems with connection, some with fire protection authority, while others had problems with financial institutions; the experiences were different but they were there to summaries them.

Mgrs. Matejic also said that they had successfully completed 6 reviews of financial barriers together with their consultant, a professor from the Faculty of Economics. Energy Saving Group are the consultants now and they were making an assessment of technical barriers. She asked the members of the SBA Board to share their experience with the consultants and assist them in developing a guide. The SBA Board members talked about their experience and agreed to have another meeting when the SBA members could talk in greater detail about their experience and work with the UNDP to compile a guide to assist prospective investors in overcoming the barriers.