BiH shifts from electricity exporter to importer

(Patria) - In January of this year, Bosnia and Herzegovina imported more electricity than it exported for the first time, reports Capital.ba.

According to official data from the Indirect Taxation Authority (UIO), BiH exported electricity worth 74.9 million KM in the first month of this year, while electricity worth 81.4 million KM was imported into BiH during the same period.

These figures are concerning because BiH is known as an exporter of electricity, as evidenced by data from previous years which show that electricity exports significantly exceeded imports, and the value of imported electricity was several times lower than the value of exported electricity.

Last year, electricity worth 312.6 million KM was imported into BiH, while the value of exported electricity was 669.7 million KM.

The year before, electricity worth 215.8 million KM was imported into BiH, while the value of exported electricity was as high as 1.055 billion KM.

The import and export data for 2022 also show exports significantly outweighing imports, with the value of exported electricity at 1.074 billion KM, and import value at 393.5 million KM.

In 2021, electricity worth 218.7 million KM was imported into BiH, while electricity worth 827.6 million KM was exported, which is almost four times more.

In 2020, when the coronavirus pandemic began to rage, electricity worth 499.5 million KM was exported from BiH, while the value of imported electricity was five times lower – only 96.3 million KM.

Economic analyst Igor Gavran tells Capital that little shows the collapse of public sector management in BiH as clearly as the data on electricity imports and exports.

"Elektroprivreda RS is practically falling apart, with a particularly catastrophic situation at the Ugljevik thermal power plant, but the rest of the company is far from good, and Elektroprivreda BiH has fallen from being a leading exporter to a level where increasing electricity prices is the wisest thing they can come up with. Foreign trade data are merely a consequence of all this," Gavran points out.

He adds that even the previous positive balance was not a cause for celebration because it meant that our economy was too weak to utilize the produced energy, so instead of final products, we exported electricity as a raw material.

"But the current situation is tragic and signals a trend where, first due to management incompetence, and later due to the objective shutdown of capacities that are not being renewed, we will have a deficit in this area as well, importing more and more, with no exports at all," Gavran concludes.