One of the biggest investors in BiH in the past several years, the Al Shiddi Group, is considering to retreat from BiH, which would result in a large number of people left without their job. The reason for this decision is numerous obstructions of our state authorities against Arab investments as well as the obstruction of the arrival of Arab tourists.
Due to all of this, BiH could easily lose 60 million BAM of money that would stay in BiH through the tourist visits. However, the Council of Ministers of BiH issued a decision with which the citizens of Saudi Arabia are allowed to enter BiH if they have a valid visa for one of the countries of the EU. However, many of them do not have a visa for the EU and thus cannot visit BiH either.
“Why tourists from Saudi Arabia who are welcomed in Switzerland, France, Serbia or Germany are not welcomed in BiH,” stated from the Al Shiddi Group.
A large number of Arab tourists in BiH should also support the direct airline between Riyadh and Sarajevo, which will have flights every day by the end of the month of September. It is estimated that Nesma Airlines will have 150 passengers on a daily basis, and they are planning a total of 92 flights.
The Council of Ministers of BiH has been considering liberalization of the visa regime for citizens of Saudi Arabia without success for a long time, and they are supposed to further help the development of tourism, economy, and industry in BiH.
“While waiting for their trip, with prepaid hotel accommodation in BiH, more than a thousand of citizens of Saudi Arabia requested a visa for BiH. The Embassy of BiH in Riyadh cannot issue those visas because they have less than 3,000 stickers at the moment, and more than 30,000 thousands citizens expressed their interest in visiting BiH. Ambassador Bristric is requesting help for many months and additional staff for the realization of all requests, which is just one of the reasons for canceling the arrival of a large number of tourists. This is yet another example of how certain civil workers in BiH, because of their private interests, are stopping the development of the economy and opening of new workplaces in BiH,” as said from the Al Shiddi Group.
Although the Council of Ministers of BiH adopted the decision on allowing citizens of Saudi Arabia to enter BiH with a valid Schengen visa, this decision has not been implemented yet since no formal instructions were sent to the Border Police nor official information was sent to Saudi Arabia.
(Source: S. Hambo/Klix.ba)
