Chairman Bevanda at EBRD Conference “Investing in the Western Balkans”

Chairman of the Council of Ministers of BIH Vjekoslav Bevanda spoke during a Prime Ministers’ Session of the Regional Conference “Investing in Western Balkans”, organised by het EBRD in London. 

He welcomed the idea to organise events aiming at the promotion of the Western Balkans region as an investment destination. He specified that the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, as one among major institutional investors in Bosnia and Herzegovina, realised a very successful cooperation, resulting in a number of projects directed towards the economic development of the country.

“Today, I would like to present Bosnia and Herzegovina and its potentials, and thereafter together with the colleagues from around the region define common interests, and translate them into prospective regional projects”, Chairman Bevanda said in his address to the conference, pointing at a fact that BIH has been often mentioned in negative context as of lately in view of the European Integrations process, I have intention today to prove that it is about a country bestowed with numerous potentials.

“It should be noted primarily that BIH has a very advantageous geographical position – it is situated at the cross roads between East and West, Mediterranean and Continent - it is only two hours air flight away from the European business centres, and most importantly, it has approximately 1,000 km long border with the European Union, and finally, it abounds in natural resources, though mainly unutilised.”

Chairman Bevanda mentioned the energy sector as an area for prospective investments, saying that BIH has a major hydro potential of 6,000 MW, used now in 35 per cent capacity only. He also mentioned substantial wind and sun energy potentials, as well as potential oil and gas findings with about 50 million tonnes of black gold.

“It is important to note a need to invest into the infrastructure, especially in the construction of the Corridor V c; modernisation of the existing air ports, and reconstruction of devastated local and regional road”, said Chairman Bevanda in his delivery, adding that there is also a considerable number of infrastructural projects of the regional importance, such as the Adriatic- Ionian motorway and Adriatic-Ionian gas line.

He referred to some advantages offered by BIH, which foreign investors might find very beneficial. He said that BIH enjoys the trade preferential treatment for export of its products to a certain number of countries, thanks to signed CEFTA agreements, enabling the access to over 20 million strong customs free market and a contract with the EU on preferential export to over 500 million strong market, where over 95 per cent of products are freed from custom duties. He related to the importance of the stability of eth BIH currency and to the VAT rate, which is among the lowest in Europe, as well as of foreign investors’ rights equalised with those of domestic ones and especially protected.

“Having regard of the above potentials and advantages, facts remain, however, that there is still a lot of challenges ahead, but if we pull our strings together with other countries of the region, we can be stronger and more competitive at the European and global markets. The Western Balkan countries have many similar features, besides the fact that the majority of them were formed by the break-up of ex-SFRY, such as the transition from planned to market oriented economy, obsolete technology, and devastated infrastructure, along with a major common feature, and that is the goal of the European Union membership”, Chairman Bevanda said, and added that these similarities should become our advantage, which is a mere purpose of the Stabilisation and Accession Process, where the cooperation of countries of the region takes them to the common goal – a full-fledged membership in the European Union.

At the end of his address, Chairman Bevanda expressed his hope that discussions at today’s event would strengthen relations among the Western Balkan countries, consolidate the existing cooperation to result in concrete regional projects, and that it would finally take the participant countries closer to the European Union.

The conference was opened by EBRD president Suma Chakrabarti, and other than chairman Bevanda, the conference is attended by Prime Ministers of Western Balkan countries with candidate or potential candidate status for the EU membership: Edi Rama (Albania), Hashim Tachi (Kosovo), Nikola Gruevski (Macedonia), Milo Đukanović (Montenegro), and Ivica Dačić (Serbia). The Conference is attended by Croatian Prime Minister Zoran Milanović, while the European Union is represented by European Commissioner for Enlargement and Neighbour Policy Štefan Füle.

(end)