Citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina pay the most expensive medicines in the region

(Patria) - Statistics are relentless, medicine prices in Bosnia and Herzegovina are the highest in the region.

Due to cheaper medicines, citizens living in border areas of the country go to neighboring Serbia and Croatia, and the savings, as they say, are up to 40 percent for some medicines.

Stevo Manojlović, a pensioner from Zvornik, regularly buys the medicines he needs in Serbia. As he says, at only a few hundred meters away, across the bridge, the price difference is significant.

"I go here to the corner. There were three, now there are two closed. There are some that are more expensive here, but there are also some that are cheaper. For a few marks, especially for these pensioners who count every dinar," Manojlović points out.

Pensioners and chronically ill patients know best how exorbitant the prices of medicines and medical supplies are in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

"I am one of them, although I rarely need them, but I cross over when I need to buy them. Besides medicines, many also cross for vegetables and fruits, and many buy bread," says Tonka Jovičić from the Association of Pensioners of the City of Zvornik.

The high VAT rate is one of the key reasons why medicines are more expensive in BiH than in the surrounding countries. Citizens point out that by shopping in the "neighborhood" they save several marks on just one medicine.

When asked if there will be a price reduction for medicines in our country and if margins can be limited, there was no answer from the Agency for Medicines and Medical Devices of BiH. They previously stated that a reduction in medicine prices would occur if VAT were reduced or a differential retail margin were introduced, the amount of which is determined by the entity ministries of health.

"We have asked the ministry several times and have not received an adequate answer. Most likely, these are some transactions that those who deal with the trade of medicines in our country have. When there was talk of limiting margins for the first time, it was said that margins would be limited to about 17%. The question is what the margins were before," says Jovan Vasilić from the Consumer Association "Zvono" Bijeljina.

While citizens manage by buying medicines across the border, officials still do not offer concrete solutions, and even the proposed ones do not have support.

Unlike Bosnia and Herzegovina, countries in the region have a general and a special tax rate under which medicines are treated. The tax rate in our country is the highest in the region and is even 3 times higher than in Croatia and North Macedonia.