Ivan Gazdić, President of the FIC Infrastructure & Real Estate Committee (Petrikić & Partners a.o.d., in cooperation with CMS Reich-Rohrwig Hainz)

Good Experiences with Shared Work

The FIC has among its members esteemed representatives from the field of real estate and infrastructure development, who are ready to offer innovative solutions to the challenges ahead to the relevant institutions. The cooperation model that has been used to date has proven to be extremely productive.

We can have various predictions and we can have various priorities, but I believe that we can agree on one thing: the period ahead of us won’t be boring in the slightest.

The uncertainty we are confronted with due to the novel coronavirus can be compared to being at war. However, even under such circumstances, we decided to set clear goals for our FIC Infrastructure & Real Estate Committee and to put all the necessary energy into achieving those goals.

In the previous period a direct dialogue between the FIC and the Ministry of Construction, Transport and Infrastructure proved to be a very productive way of cooperating and influencing the drafting of laws and regulations, particularly when the FIC was represented in the working groups for the drafting of regulations, which was the case during the previous year. We will continue this kind of cooperation with the Ministry of Construction, Transport and Infrastructure in the upcoming period as well.

We will also work on establishing cooperation between our Infrastructure & Real Estate Committee and the Ministry of Mining and Energy. We will do so primarily in connection with the announced auctions for the further development of renewable energy sources (RES). We want to offer the Ministry the professional support of our members during the preparation of a new package of regulations for RES. We see a great potential in the RES sector, first and foremost because of the proven sustainability of such projects and their compatibility with nature, which is becoming an unavoidable standard in all spheres of business during these times of crisis.

Our Committee’s members have recently had a very interesting meeting with representatives of the Republic Geodetic Authority (RGA). After that the RGA submitted very useful answers to numerous questions posed by our members. This is just one meeting in a series of meetings that we plan to hold on a regular basis.

We also plan to organise a meeting with the City of Belgrade’s Secretariat for Urban Planning and Construction. Its aim is to enable all members – in direct conversation with representatives of the city administration – to remedy individual dilemmas that emerge during the implementation of projects in the capital city.

Some sectors in the field of real estate development were hit quite hard by the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic; among them was also the hotel industry. Shopping centres were completely empty at one point, which can also be said of office space following the growing trend to work from home. Apartment sales are slowly returning to the level they used to be prior to the pandemic. On the other hand, the development of logistics and warehousing space seems to be among the least endangered sectors. The FIC has among its members esteemed representatives of all the aforementioned main sectors in the field of real estate and infrastructure development, and we can say that the FIC’s Infrastructure & Real Estate Committee is ready to offer innovative solutions to the challenges that lie ahead.