Federal Prime Minister Fadil Novalic announced in an interview with Federal TV on Sunday that additional 100 million BAM will be used to help the hardest hit sectors, then pointed out that thanks to government measures, 10,000 jobs have been returned since May and announced the adoption of fiscal laws.
He assessed for FTV that the creation of “Mini-Schengen” countries in the region is a good idea from the point of view of the economy.
“Expansion of the market is a good thing, but we have quite bad experiences with CEFTA, in which we are witnessing a series of administrative bans on the flow of our goods to our neighbors,” said Novalic.
Asked about the information that only 19 percent of the funds that “Corona Law” provided for helping the economy were used, Novalic said that this information was correct because the help was given only to those who had a drop in business of more than 20 percent.
“It turned out that there was not such a large number of companies that recorded such a decline in business,” said Novalic.
He explained that by this law, companies that had a decline were exempted from paying an advance for profit and income tax, which is the amount of hundreds of millions of BAM and cantons were paid 200 million BAM to combat health and the economic effects of the pandemic.
Novalic emphasized that another 100 million BAM will be used to help the most severely affected sectors such as tourism, catering, exports, transport and airports.
He added that the Guarantee Fund was formed with the aim of stimulating commercial banks to lend to the economy.
Novalic claims that the new debt to the International Monetary Fund does not mean that the Federation has liquidity problems, since the share of FBiH debt to GDP is twice lower than in RS, more than twice lower than in Serbia, and more than three times lower than in Serbia and in Croatia.
When it comes to workers who lost their jobs during the pandemic, Novalic says that there is no need for manipulation and stated that 17,193 workers have lost their jobs since March 16 until today.
However, thanks to government measures since May, 10,000 jobs have been restored.
