The Prime Minister of Montenegro, Dritan Abazović,  highlighted the importance of peace for achieving progress in initiatives related to the Silk Road when addressing the Tbilisi Silk Road Forum.

Here is the PM’s speech as delivered:

“Dear ministers, dear ambassadors, excellencies, participants of this great forum, let me begin by congratulating the government of Georgia and our friend Irakli for organizing this great event and for the very warm hospitality in Georgia. I’m coming from Montenegro and look to my country as similar in many aspects to Georgia.

We are a country in the Western Balkans and also like Georgia here trying to play the role of bridge to bring our neighbours together, to bring people together and to see the possibility of how we can be with more wisdom and more smart in the future to make the good things for all that part of Europe.

The idea is very simple. We cannot change the past. Only what we can change is the future. The only thing that we can change and what is our obligation to do is to change the future, to change the future in a good way, to promote more peace, more stability, more good projects, more infrastructure and to bring the people together.

And I want to congratulate, especially dear Irakli, because he today brings here two of our colleagues, my friends, the Prime Minister of Azerbaijan and, the Prime Minister of Armenia, two countries which are friends of Montenegro, and I think that this is good way to talk about important projects for the future of this region, but also for the Europe and Asia.

Today in a globalized world, it’s not important how big is one country. It’s important how big is idea we have and, which can be promoted and which we can accept. And in that way, it’s very important to talk about access. It’s very important to talk about the roads, about the airports, about the ports.

The most important thing to make the reconciliation, it’s access to the people. Easy moving of humans on people and goods. And in that sense, every initiative, Silk Road, everything, what we heard today from our colleagues and what we heard during this forum, will be crucially important for the future and the peace. But without peace, there is no possibility to make progress.

Today we are facing big, big global challenges. After the Coronavirus, which destroyed a lot of economics, including the economy of Montenegro because our country is a lot dependent on the tourism sector. 25 per cent of our direct income is from tourism. 75 per cent indirect. We finally found the solution for the recovery.

And this year I am very glad to say this. Montenegro will have the best tourist season in the history. Our parameters are out of any expectations, are very good. After 2019, which was the record season, now, 2023, it’s even better. People starting to move again, people starting to travel again, and it’s very good that after Corona and after closing, and I want to underline the rule of China, which was closed for many years because of this reason. Finally, we now have the travelling also from China.

We have the problem, big problem in our country because of the war between Russia and Ukraine. 20 per cent of our market was depend on the Russians, Ukraine and Belarus. And we find the solution to somehow open the new destination. That destinations are in the Middle East, Saudi Arabia, Emirates, Kuwait for the first time, and some other destinations like Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan and show that people only need access. People are ready to travel. People are ready to discover. We just need to deliver the possibilities and the options. It’s true that we opened the first highway in Montenegro last year and that highway was one of the most expensive highways in the world unfortunately. but we don’t want to stop there. Our vision is immediately next year to continue to build that highway, which connects the South and North of the country via Serbia from Bardi, which is one small town in Montenegro and our main port to Belgrade and Budapest, but also government starting to deliver new projects, which will connect the east to the west, from border to Albania, to border to Bosnia and Croatia. And this is the crucial thing with our Azerbaijani friends. I talked with Mr. Alyiev, the President of Azerbaijan, about the pipeline for the transporting of gas. We are not part of the gas network, but the idea is that from Greece one pipeline goes to Albania. And after that, it’s our ambition together with Croatia to promote the project, which will go to the north. First, Montenegro, after that to Croatia. This is the way we will make it possible to not have the kind of big crashes that we had last year after energy energy crisis started.

We didn’t feel an energy crisis and I am very proud of the work of my colleagues. Montenegro also in this situation makes a good result. We starting to export the electricity around. And we have the connection, which I want to promote here, underwater cable, which connects Montenegro with Italy.

So, we have the ambition and already signed an agreement that until 2027, we will double the capacity of underwater cable. And I invite everybody from all the countries who have the vision to invest in the energy sector, renewable, in the solar plants, in the wind farms to come to Montenegro to see the possibility of doing business there.

It’s not important that our market is not so big. We want to be the hub for the production of electricity power, which will be sold in the European Union or somewhere else. So it’s important to make that infrastructure, which can make this very possible. In the context of economy, also, so with all these challenges, with all these wars and the problems, now the new one in the situation in Israel, Montenegro this year have 620 operations in the context of line, direct lines with Israel.

And I think that we are one of the countries which growing a lot with tourists from that country. Now, this is a very bad situation and we praying for peace. Our role globally, like a small country, it’s not to say what somebody needs to do, but we always want to promote something that is universal values.

We need to talk, sit together, and in dialogue to find a solution. Violence, it’s not acceptable like a tool for coming to political goals. This is the primitive way of thinking. Violence, it’s not a tool. Killing all the people, making a problem, destroying the infrastructure, and houses, it’s not a tool.

The tool is to use diplomacy, to sit together, to use our friends, to share good energy, find a solution. Maybe to spend more time, but to have better results. And in that sense, we just want to say that our country, also in the role of the Western Balkans, with very clear foreign policy and with very clear goal, which is to become the first new member of the European Union in that sense, support the political aspiration of another countries for joining EU, especially Georgia and another countries, of course. And we think that the open door policy should be like a principle. Countries should decide what kind of organization want to join and in which club want to participate, but not to make the problems to another.

These are the key principles in the context of the economy, the prediction of the international monetary fund, Montenegro, in the year 2023 will have a growth of 4. 9%, which is the best result in Europe. Better than Germany, better than France, better than Italy, better than any country in Europe. It will be hard to keep that also in the next years, but we think in a way to talk less about the past and to talk more about the future.

I think that we will have success. We need to move the focus for the some big political topics, which was very famous also in the region of Western Balkan to some another topics, which are extremely important for a globalized world, we need to invest in digitalization to use new technologies, including artificial intelligence, to make our system more productive to have administration, which will be more effective, to kill the barriers for the business, and to make the decision process much more effective. If we come to this, I am more than sure that we will have a very big success.

Big success, we wish to all other countries. I wish also one more time to congratulate the government of Georgia. We’re looking on Georgia like a good example. I follow them very closely in what they do in tourism. They are very good and have very good marketing, but also to say that this is the way how we can fix the problem.

We should sit together and I am really glad to hear from the Prime Minister of Armenia and Prime Minister of Azerbaijan, how openly talking about the project of infrastructure, which we want to build together. Roads are for connecting people and investment, it’s not important are they coming from China, are they coming from Japan, from Saudi Arabia or from somewhere else?

Importance is at the end of the day to have the projects, to realize the projects because, at the end of the day, people all around will use those ports or airports or this way to connect each other and maybe to bring more stability and peace everywhere.”