Issue 486 - April 13, 2001

Successful businessmen, especially the kind which has suddenly prospered during Milosevic’s regime, are facing a new challenge these days: kidnappers who know how, from whom and how much to ask on the one hand, and the government which is announcing tax on extra profits acquired by “special connections” with the Family, on the other hand.

The early elections in Montenegro, scheduled for April 22, are in fact a referendum before the fact, with the fate of the third Yugoslavia being up for grabs in them. In this sense, the April elections are more than elections, or, as the President of Montenegro put it, they are a mere stop en route to verifying independence for an internationally recognized Montenegro

People who know something about Karadzic’s current situation have been claiming from the very beginning that the interview to BiH Danas was simply fabricated

‘We are bringing new technologies, offering good possibilities of employment and intending to prepare the ground for a number of foreign investors who have interest in the Yugoslav market’, says Peter Dubsky, director general of Raiffeisen Yugoslavia Bank, the latest in the line of twelve banks founded by this group in central and eastern Europe. The reasons for our investment were explained by Oliver Roegl, member of the bank’s management board, at a promoting conference in the Intercontinental Hotel, on Tuesday, April 10th: ‘We have been observing the Yugoslav market for a longer period. Political circumstances prevented us from stepping into some serious business, such as establishing a new bank here, but soon after the old regime was replaced in October, we came with the intention of creating Raiffeisen the first foreign bank in Yugoslavia. We place our trust in the new Yugoslav authorities and so far our expectations are fulfilled. The economic potential in Yugoslavia is enormous, it is the central point in the Balkans and I’m pretty sure that a number of other companies will soon realise that. We couldn’t wait any longer; we opted for the strategy of the parallel entry and exploration of the market. We have a leading position in all the countries where we appeared, having taken control of the major part of the market. It was the case with Hungary and Croatia. Of course, there is always a big risk, but it cannot be compared with the gains that we expect after the economic situation is improved.’

It is important that the reformist influence within DOS (the Democratic Opposition of Serbia) is spread towards constituting such market institutions, which would detach us from the ‘parasite economy’