New Year, Christmas, birthday, vacation, celebration, and then back in a circle

We are going to meet another spring. Spring is always the ideal time to introduce new things into everyday life. It is a real opportunity to break the vicious circle of the established flow of items from the headlines, both in private and the economic (business) life of companies and the state. You don't say "spring work" for fun. Spring work is also suitable for getting out of a crisis. The only question is, from which exactly, given that I currently count four in my head? Actually, no, but three. The other day, I realized that the crisis caused by the pandemic is over and that the uncertainties we are currently experiencing are the logical consequence of the remaining three. When I started writing this text, one of my ideas was: don't bring pessimism into it and focus on spring and the opportunities it brings. I hope that in the rest of the text, I will succeed in this.

The first change: With the coming season, significant infrastructure works go hand in hand. As a rule, they have been ceding to foreign companies for many years. So, for example, in the construction of highways, we are adorned with sophisticated cosmopolitanism. Our roads are being built by companies from China, Turkey, Greece, Bulgaria, Spain, Azerbaijan and America, while companies from China and Russia are leading in constructing train infrastructure. Cosmopolitanism is perfectly fine, but going to extremes is not correct, especially since we still have a couple of relatively solid and essential construction companies. Suppose their number needs to be increased or they need help to adopt and apply new technical and technological achievements in the production processes. In that case, the solution is not to cut them off completely when large infrastructure projects are being conducted. The result will be their even more significant stunting and shutdown. Incorporating these companies into such large and essential infrastructure projects is critical. Here, of course, I am not talking about the total exclusion of foreign companies when it comes to public infrastructure projects, considering the practical benefits: the transfer of knowledge by large foreign companies that have significant experience, technical expertise and new technologies in the process of implementing projects of this type. The benefits of greater involvement of domestic construction companies are multiple: more money for domestic companies, adoption of new knowledge and technologies, obtaining necessary references for the execution of projects abroad, which also leads to the growth of GNI (gross national income), as well as facilitated and cheaper maintenance of the built infrastructure, considering that in that case the maintenance would be done by domestic companies, participants in specific projects.

Second change: An indispensable element in every project is its financing. In the last fifteen years, almost 2.5 billion euros were invested, or better said, borrowed, for highway construction projects, while for railway construction, that figure is around 2.2 billion euros. Those loans are 100% financed based on loans from abroad. In the spirit of change, we could change this predictable practice by opening a taboo topic: the primary emission of money. It can have its adverse effects only and exclusively if this instrument is activated unplanned. However, if it is specifically and targeted started for, e.g. the construction of public infrastructure (roads, railways, sewage networks, water factories, etc.), it would have more positive effects: the inflation rate at the time of emission is targeted, the domestic economy is started, the GDP increases, the number of employees increases, there is greater inclusion of related industries, and the process of exiting another of the three remaining crises begins. Also, another change that could be introduced in the uniform system of financing infrastructure projects is the issuance of government bonds to the citizens of Serbia. The state would receive the necessary funding, and citizens would accept returns on their investments. The difference between the issuance of government bonds and foreign borrowing is that citizens, instead of foreign banks, would charge the interest on borrowed funds.

I've almost heard of a phenomenon: the empathy crisis. In short, if we are exposed to negative information daily, we run into a danger called "empathy fatigue". It hinders us from solving problems and pushes us to accept things as they are without desiring change. The opposite is needed: more proposals and less talk about the issues. Let's introduce different instruments to solve the same problem to meet the spring. It's healthy, and it can be profitable.