BiH has done nothing in ten months to bring its businesses closer to the EU

Bosnia and Herzegovina loses hundreds of millions of marks annually due to the inability to export food products to European Union countries, and the consequences will soon be even more catastrophic because the rules for trading food products are becoming increasingly stringent even on the CEFTA market, where BiH can still freely export these products, reports the Bosnian news agency Patria (NAP).

Bosnia and Herzegovina has an obligation to introduce European systems for monitoring the production and processing of food of animal origin as well as other food products so that companies from BiH can trade freely on the European Union market.

Despite this, the authorities of Bosnia and Herzegovina are doing nothing to bring domestic businesses closer to the European Union market. After the dismissal of the Minister of Foreign Trade and Economic Relations of BiH, Mirko Šarović, in October last year, BiH has not adopted a single regulation that would bring domestic food companies closer to the world market, even though this could revive the entire country's economy in a short time.

A few days ago, a second shipment of food products from several leading BiH companies, such as Vispak, Klas, Oaza, and the company Akova, was dispatched from BiH to the markets of Dubai and Abu Dhabi. However, the company Balkan Trading, through which BiH products are placed on the Gulf countries' market, paid a fine for the second time when the goods arrived on that market, because BiH products do not possess the so-called health certificate.

- If BiH companies cannot obtain the health certificate in the coming period, as well as all other certificates required by international markets, the Gulf countries' market and the CEFTA market will also be jeopardized, because the criteria for trading food products in these markets are becoming increasingly stringent - experts warn.

Several interlocutors from the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Relations of BiH told Patria that Minister Boris Tučić, following the orders of Milorad Dodik's policy, is deliberately blocking all processes that should improve the export of food products from Bosnia and Herzegovina, aiming to further undermine the country's stability and show that BiH is not a functional state.

It is clear that such attitudes of Dodik and Tučić, say sources from the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Relations of BiH, do not only make life difficult in the Federation of BiH, but also directly affect businesses and citizens from the Republika Srpska, writes NAP.