Present

After the 2010 election and the leadership of the government changed, the things are changing too because the previous leadership was not leaning towards civic activities. Due to the changes the EC wants to participate again and stir up activities in this city and the region, mainly in the area of tourism, air transportation and to reach investors with these activities. We had first discussions with the new government i.e. with the Ministry of Transportation and the Ministry of Defense. We received a full support from them in regard to renew the regularly scheduled flight to the Sliac airport and for Tatra Air Cargo project. We are preparing a project with the University of Matej Bell and the Swiss Hotel Federation to open a branch of the Swiss Hotel school of higher level right here in Banska Bystrica. Both of these projects fully correspond with the concept of development of this region. This concept in the future should fully focus especially to tourism, services and education. We believe that with the support of all members and the responsible bodies we will be able to in very short time inform you about the first steps taken in these projects. Concurrently with this we are preparing meeting with representatives from China which should happen by the end of March 2011. This meeting is directly tied to these projects. As far as the cultural and social agenda is concerned and after the last activity that was in 2009 in Switzerland during the second largest exhibition in Payern close to Geneva, we would like to start with the preparation of similar presentation in the fall of 2011 in Brussels. We believe that with support of Mr. Korcok, the Ambassador at the EU who by the way is our member too we will succeed.

We are preparing to have new meetings with our members in our headquarters in order to have face to face meetings instead of just through the internet because we believe that meeting in person we were able to develop more activities thus support business activities of our members.