This is an amazing investment project for the city of Sarajevo and Bosnia-Herzegovina. Could you give us a brief historical background on Bosmal?

Our story is a mixture of luck and ideas, entrepreneurship and vision. It all began when the war broke out in Sarajevo and I contacted a friend who was studying in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. After speaking to him I decided to go there looking for a better life and once there I entered the Technology University of Malaysia and enrolled in Computer Science. In the meantime I met a person who was to become our business partner for the future, a Malaysian who offered me some financial support while I continued my studies. At the time it was common for Bosnian refugees to be sponsored by foreign families while the war was raging in this country. This person offered his help to me while I finished my studies in Kuala Lumpur.

During one of my frequent visits to my sponsor's office I noticed some pictures of a construction site and asked him about his recent business projects. It turned out that he was involved in important real estate development projects in Kuala Lumpur, a fact that raised my interest. At the time he was finishing 1,200 units of condominiums and he invited me to visit his project which I did with great interest.

In 1997, the year the war in Bosnia ended, I had some ideas about the post-war reconstruction of Sarajevo so I asked my sponsor to return with me to Sarajevo and study the possibility of carrying out a real estate development project there. At the beginning he was not too interested in the possibility of doing business in Sarajevo but I invited him over to see for himself and after some consideration he asked me to start searching for a land in Sarajevo suitable for a development project.

During this time my brother Mr. Nijaz Sabanovic, who had arrived in Malaysia in 1993, was working as an architect in a studio at Kuala Lumpur. We both decided to work together in a new project that would completely change the face of Sarajevo and be innovative. After preliminary studies, my brother came back to Sarajevo to start the development company with four equal shareholders: our two Malay partners and us. We then found the necessary financing from the Bank Islam Labuan Malaysia. This bank works under the sharia law and offers all the financial needs under the Islamic precepts of banking. This form of banking can be more flexible as it offers interesting advantages over the traditional Western form of banking: they both share risks and profits together with the investor. If the investment is a failure, they ask for the original amount credited without any interest.

We chose the land and the bank completed its appraisal and we obtained a line of credit of $20.1 million USD. Why did we choose this land? Because it offered us the best advantages and the least bureaucratic obstacles as a young mayor with new ideas rules the municipality. We were quite lucky to find this mayor who offered us this land in his municipality. We then returned to Malaysia, obtained the credit and began the project.

Could you give us some details about the design of the project?

The idea for the project came from my brother and his Malaysian architect partner. Our idea was to build condominiums but we were divided between apartments and condominiums. We decided to build both with a young group of architects who have finalized the design to adapt it to a more exclusive and modern clientele.

The concept of our project is to have two identical buildings with luxury apartments with up to 5 rooms fully fitted with the latest comforts. Some of them will include Jacuzzis of up to 6 people. We will include a large swimming pool for the exclusive use of the residents within our complex. Apart from this we will offer a parking space for every apartment and a gym and Sauna free of use for residents of our buildings. We will offer comprehensive medical services such as an in-house doctor, a dentist and first aid services. The building will also have a promenade with shops and cafés, including a gallery with restaurants. The buildings will be complete with state of the art elevators that will lead to a restaurant on the last floor that will overlook the surrounding city of Sarajevo.

At what stage of the project are you?

Currently we are building the foundations for it and the three sub-zero ground floors. After that we intend to begin the actual building. We have completed the initial ground tests to make sure that the ground is safe.

How successful are you being with the promotional side?

We are being very successful as so far we are now at full demand for our apartments. At the beginning some of the people involved in this project were skeptic about the project and thought that this type of enterprise could only be carried out in this country 15 or 20 years from now. However, I believe that this is a sign or a message for any company in the world that wishes to do any serious investment in Sarajevo that it is possible now to do it and that this is the right time.

Are you also developing some office and business space?

Yes, we have 9,000 m2 of office space and 49,000 m2 of living space. As a curiosity I would like to point out that the buildings will be the two highest in the Balkans.

This project is going to be a landmark in Sarajevo. Are you being pioneers in the region with this enterprise?

Yes, we consider it to be a major breakthrough in post-war Sarajevo with state of the art technologies such as fiber optic cables and the best services possible. We would like to take the opportunity through this interview to invite McDonald's, the American fast food chain of restaurants, to consider our development site as a possible space for opening a restaurant in Sarajevo. In this regard we will offer them a corner of our building which will be a prime site in Sarajevo. We understand that it is difficult to find appropriate space in Sarajevo and we are now offering them the possibility to consider our project for their future business in Sarajevo.

What message of encouragement would you give to investors when considering this country for their future enterprises?

We want to show investors that it is safe to invest in Bosnia now despite the negative image that surrounded the country during the war years. Sarajevo is now safe. We also have the financial infrastructure such as banks that can offer investors with the necessary financial guarantees for any investment. Also we would like to ask banks to consider opening business in Bosnia because we believe there is a great commercial potential in this part of the world. Banks will consider investing here once they see that business projects such as ours begin.

Note: WINNE cannot be held responsible for the content of unedited transcriptions.