Tučić responsible for not issuing health certificates

Bosnia and Herzegovina companies Vispak, Oaza, Klas Sarajevo, Akova, as well as products from Voćar Brčko, Hepok Mostar, and several other companies from Bosnia and Herzegovina have sent their second shipment of food products to the market of Dubai and Abu Dhabi, and they have not yet received the "Health" certificate from the institutions of Bosnia and Herzegovina, reports the BiH news agency Patria (NAP).

Due to this oversight by Bosnia and Herzegovina, the company Balkan Trading, through which BiH products are marketed in the Gulf countries, is paying a fine to the local institutions amounting to several thousand convertible marks.

The Food Safety Agency of Bosnia and Herzegovina claims that the veterinary inspections of the entities and Brčko District, as well as the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Relations, headed by Minister Boris Tučić, are responsible for this situation, writes NAP.

- The Food Safety Agency of Bosnia and Herzegovina has received several inquiries from food business operators regarding the issuance of health certificates that accompany shipments during export from Bosnia and Herzegovina. The Agency is not competent to issue health certificates, as it has no legal basis for it - explained the Food Safety Agency of BiH to the Patria agency.

- Health certificates accompanying food of animal origin shipments during export from Bosnia and Herzegovina are issued by the veterinary inspections of the entities and Brčko District of BiH, and for food of non-animal origin, the issuance of health certificates is within the competence of the entity bodies and Brčko District of BiH, which carry out direct verification of food business operators in all stages of production, processing, treatment, and storage - they added further.

The Food Safety Agency claims that they have informed the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Relations of BiH about the problem faced by BiH businessmen during the export of goods to the Gulf countries, but they have not yet received an answer from them.

- Given that the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Relations is the competent authority at the state level for the implementation of the Law on Foreign Trade Policy of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Agency sent a written initiative to the Ministry in mid-February 2014 to resolve the issue of issuing health certificates. However, to date, we have not received an official response from the Ministry to the aforementioned initiative - claim the Food Safety Agency of BiH. They refer to Article 8 of the Law on Foreign Trade Policy of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which regulates the export of food from BiH in detail, writes NAP.