The Danube Business Forum will be held for the 8th time this year in Novi Sad, Serbia. Its organizers are Media Invent, Institute for European regions from Salzburg, and Union of entrepreneurs from Serbia and the sponsors are Chamber of commerce from Serbia, City of Novi Sad, and Provincial secretary for economy and tourism.

Within the framework of the Danube Business Forum, COSMENERG-4i intends to invite relevant stakeholders that have collaborated with our European Strategic Cluster Partnership and that met our delegation during the fact-finding missions in 2018. We expect to bring to Novi Sad partners from Israel, Jordan, Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Turkey, Taiwan, India, etc.

During the DBF, you will be able to meet relevant stakeholders and participate in parallel events organized by COSMENERG-4i. You will also have time to visit the beautiful city of Novi Sad, which is the capital city of Vojvodina Region and the second biggest city of Serbia after Belgrade. We would also like to point out that for this year Novi Sad has been awarded the title European Youth Capital and that it is chosen to be European Capital of Culture for 2021.

The forum will cover topics from EU Strategy for the Danube Region (EUSDR) and especially how businesses can influence its implementation.

Suggested panels for this Forum are:

• Regions, bridges of integration processes,
• Challenges of EU,
• West Balkan, unified economic market,
• Business challenge ‘From the Danube to the ASEAN’
• Danube Financial Dialogue,
• Business and its role in building prosperity,
• Information technologies as integration tools,
• Smart cities for smart people,
• Smart villages. Cooperatives in the service of agricultural development,
• Clusters, creative potential of unified business activities,
• Research oriented, engaged, and objective medias, a key of peace,
• Civil society. From institutional control to creative change,
• B2B exchange of ideas.

In order to promote European values and standards, the DBF will award the Danube Flower for contribution to the implementation of the Danube Strategy, the Danube Charter for the advancement of Danube cooperation, and the Sustainable Development Charter for contributing to development in the circular economy. Participants at DBF are companies, representatives of research, development, and education institutions, state and local representatives and policy decision makers. There are no fees for participating in the Danube Business Forum.

During the DBF, COSMENERG-4i with cluster Ecopanonia from Novi Sad, Serbia, financed by  Provincial Secretariat for economy and tourism, Autonomous Province of Vojvodina, will organize the following two parallel events:

• 03/10/2019 - Presentation of the COSMENERG-4i project within panel: Business challenge ‘From the Danube to ASEAN’. The activities of the project will be presented and dedicated to the services on internationalization (i.e. entry into foreign markets, projects). Brainstorming will be organized on project ideas and cooperation on services on internationalisation. An agenda will follow soon.

• 4/10/2019 - This event is funded by the Government of Vojvodina. Serbian and other European SMEs will attend this event and COSMENERG-4i partners will present the project and services on internationalisation. Each partner cluster will introduce its cluster and all guests from third countries will present their services from their organisations and the possibilities of their countries. The agenda can be downloaded here: AGENDA