As Lustica Development stated, Gibson participated at the panel Characteristics of the Investment Climate in Montenegro and Possibilities of Procedure and Expenditures Optimisation, within the 7th Festival of Real Estate and Investments – FREI 2016, which is being held in Budva.
“I am sure that all investors, particularly foreign ones, require clarity and certainty in the business environment. One of the crucial elements is the need to maintain stability in key policies based on which major investment decisions are made, such as the Orascom’s decision to launch the project Lustica Bay”, Gibson added.
As an example, he cited the possibility of potentially negative consequences of the recent changes in the tax regime, which could result in significant financial burdens for leaseholders, ie holders of the right to use the state land.
According to him, the key areas to be focused on in order to achieve more transparency, consistency and certainty are the areas of legal and regulatory controls and processes.
“In addition, in order to ensure maintaining competitiveness of the country, it is necessary to create the processes and flexible implementation tools which will allow Montenegro to be agile and to respond quickly to changes in circumstances, including market conditions”, Gibson said.
He believes that a good coordination between the government, municipalities and investors is needed to accelerate administrative processes.
“Given the clearly showed government’s commitment to the development of tourism as one of the key sectors, large investment projects, such as Lustica Bay, are in fact projects of national importance and they should be treated in the way that the government should examine the possibility of adopting new laws based on which the government would take full responsibility for implementing such projects in order for the common objectives of both sides to be efficiently met”, the CEO of Lustica Development said.
Speaking at the panel Destination Management, an Event as a Tourism Product, Slavica Milic, representative of Lustica Development’s marketing department, said that the harmony of the prepared events with the values and philosophy of the destination brand must be taken into account particularly in the early stages of development of a tourist destination.
“Thus events, as attractions that each destination must integrate into its development policy, are the main tool for image building, destination development and generally the way to achieve both objectives”, Milic said.
