Independent Bloc: Call on governments to urgently form crisis teams to help businesses

SARAJEVO, (Patria) - The Independent Bloc welcomes the cautious and constructive measures taken by crisis headquarters in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and we believe that the health of our citizens is most important.

"We also call on the population to adhere to and respect what the competent institutions have prescribed. We also object because governments, starting with the Council of Ministers of BiH, through the entity governments, have done nothing to mitigate the economic damage to the economy of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which is already evident. We call on governments at all levels to urgently form crisis teams to help businessmen, and to include experts, representatives of foreign trade chambers and employers, trade unions, and others in these teams," said the Independent Bloc in a press release.

They add: "It is clear that measures must be urgently adopted to help entrepreneurs whose businesses are affected by the coronavirus. Crisis teams must know the problems, and their activities must be directed primarily towards supporting productive and export-oriented sectors of the economy, so that the entire situation does not escalate and the system gets out of control.".

"The goal must be clear: to help companies and the economy overcome this crisis. We must learn from the experiences of other countries and create, for example, through the Development Bank of FBiH, credit programs with minimal interest rates to ensure the reprogramming of loans for all endangered business entities with the possibility of deferring payments. There are also models for establishing public funds from which salaries of workers in companies suffering consequences due to coronavirus would be co-financed in order to preserve liquidity. Governments should also propose other models for paying profit tax from the financial year 2019, and seek emergency funds from international creditors," the Independent Bloc points out.

It is very important to preserve the entire system of our economy in the best possible condition, to help the most endangered companies affected by the crisis, and to show employers with our measures that they are not left to themselves in this difficult situation, it was announced from the Independent Bloc.