The Third International Real Estate and Investment Fair BelRE was held from October 30th to November 1st at the Belgrade Fair. The Fair opened in Hall III of the Belgrade Fair at noon of October 30. The official opening ceremony was headed by Oliver Dulic, Minister of the Environment and Spatial Planning, who stated that most participants would spend their time at BelRE discussing the challenges presented by the Global Financial Crisis. Despite its many challenges, the Crisis also provided an opportunity to bolster small countries by making their economies more attractive for investments. Minister Dulic emphasized that he saw this as a chance for Serbia to better position itself; at the same time, he announced the plans to enact new legislation which would allow the investors to obtain building permits more swiftly. Other speakers at the opening included Slobodan Mihajlovic, Executive Manager of Blok 67 Associates, General Sponsor of the third BelRE Fair, and Dusan Babac, member of the Crown Council and Director of the Royal Palace Fund, who spoke on behalf of Crown Prince Alexander and Crown Princess Katherine. The General Sponsor of the third BelRE Fair is Blok 67 Associates (Investor for the Belville Project), the Opening Party will be sponsored by Banca Intesa, Mercedes Benz Serbia and Montenegro is the Welcome Sponsor, and Lufthansa is the Official Airline. Ever since its founding, the BelRE Fair has been supported by SIEPA (Serbian Investment and Export Promotion Agency) and the City of Belgrade. The Fair gained a new patron this year - the Royal Family of Serbia. Their Royal Highnesses Crown Prince Alexander and Princess Katherine accepted, with great pleasure, to be the patrons of the Third International Real Estate and Investment Fair BELRE, and the reception ceremony for Fair's participants was held from 19:30 hours on October 30 at the White Palace. Like previous years, the BelRE Fair, as the only event of its kind in the region of former Yugoslavia, served as a gathering point for investors, developers, designers, consultants, architects, contractors, project managers, municipal and other officials, as well as the end users from Serbia and the region. The Fair was used to present current and future projects, new trends in development, master plans and detailed plans for the development of cities and regions. Discussions at the Conference were focused on the effects of the Global Financial Crisis on real estate development in the region, the future of investments in the region, major new projects, new trends in developing commercial and residential space, and smart buildings. The speakers included Dejan Jovanovic, State Secretary with the Ministry of Economy and Regional Development; Slobodanka Prekajski, Deputy Manager of the Belgrade Land Development Agency; Karpov, Deputy General Manager of the Moscow Institute for Urban Planning; Slobodan Mihajlovic, General Maneger of Blok 67 Associates - Belville; Sagiv Meger, Plaza Centers; Peter Orlic, Paul&Hastings London; Milan Marinkovic, FIMA Invest; Andjelko Trpkovic, Belgrade Fair; Hanna Bomba-Wilhelmi, Regio Plan Consulting; Bratislav Lacmanovic, Immo Industry Group Serbia. The new edition of BelRE Magazine was published for the third BelRE Fair and the magazine was presented at the beginning of November in Moscow, at the largest Russian real estate fair; after that, it was made available to participants of all major European real estate fairs: MIPIM (Cannes), Real Vienna (Vienna), FDI Expo (London), Expo Real (Munich) "After three years, BelRE has become the Number 1 event for the regional real estate market. Considering that BelRE had a presence at all major real estate fairs held in Europe over the past year, I can freely say that BelRE has great potential. There are no major real estate fairs in this part of Europe, and Belgrade has all that is needed to become the regional centre. The cooperation which was achieved with the largest real estate fairs - MIPIM, MAPIC (Cannes), MREF (Moscow) - has provided BelRE with the opportunity to be promoted outside the borders of Serbia, and the results of this expansion are already considerable this year. We have over 100 exhibitors, including international companies which have yet to open their branch offices in Serbia. The fact that they are coming to BelRE proves that they are interested in developing their business operations in our market and those in the region." , said at the opening of Third BelRE Director of the BelRE Fair Milos Rajsic.