Minister of Foreign Trade and Economic Relations of Bosnia and Herzegovina Stasa Kosarac met with importers of fresh and frozen meat in BiH and asked them to stop importing meat and buy domestic production surplus in the next 30 days.
Minister Kosarac said that his priority is the protection of domestic production and people engaged in primary production, as processing capacities, and that at this moment, as a consequence of coronavirus pandemic, BiH has about 7,000 fattening bulls in excess, Fena news agency reports.
“The fact is that our primary agricultural producers have a problem. I think it is very important to understand the people who deal with primary production, processing capacities and to continue in the domain of constitutional competencies with support. The fact is that coronavirus has left consequences and we have about 7,000 fattening bulls in excess. I asked the processors, slaughterhouses in BiH who buy and import fresh and frozen meat, to stop doing it for 30 days and to purchase domestic agricultural production. I am convinced that they will do that, and in that way, we will reduce the surpluses in BiH, enable the development of the capacities of processing activities and enable closer cooperation between those two components,” said Košarac.
He expects that foreign trade with Turkey will continue in the next seven days, which will also reduce the surplus of beef cattle production in BiH, and he mentioned the opening of new markets as a long-term measure to solve this problem, mentioning the EU.