A plan of establishing duty free zones in Rajlovac and Hadžići was considered at the recently held meeting of the Prime Minister of FBiH Fadil Novalić and the Director of the Foreign Investments Promotion Agency of BiH Gordan Milinić. This idea, regularly brought up by foreign investors at meeting with BiH authorities, is one of the important initiatives which, if implemented on the level of FBiH, might significantly contribute to the opening of new plants. However, a series of preconditions must be fulfilled in order for this idea to be implemented.
According to the Advisor to the Prime Minister of FBiH Amra Đendušić, a duty free zone actually means that a company gets substantial tax reliefs on the import of production materials, intellectual services or any other kinds of good and services, if the end goal is the export of final products.
“If a company reinvests the profit it generates, that will also be a prerequisite for additional tax reliefs. Accent is on the export of final products, for example on the export of furniture instead of logs. In duty free zones, an investor gets all the infrastructure, electricity connection and water system connection, land, and all the investor has to do is work. We are also thinking about including free usage of space for the first year of operating as an additional convenience,” Đendušić said.
In an ideal situation, the plan of the federal Government foresees a situation in which every municipality has one duty free zone. Nevertheless, a project of feasibility and obstacles for implementation of one such plan must be made prior to establishing those duty free zones.
A request for establishing a duty free zone can be submitted by a private company or a group of companies in case they prove in the request submitted to the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Relations of BiH that the value of goods exported from the duty free zone will exceed at least 50 percent of the total goods produced that leave the free zone in the period of 12 months. After that, the Ministry launches a procedure for reaching a decision in the Council of Ministers of BiH on the defining of a part of customs area in BiH as a duty free zone and, if the commission including the members of the Indirect Taxation Authority of BiH and a number of other institutions approves the request, the Ministry reaches a solution which approves the beginning of operations in the duty free zone.
Companies Prevent Cutting, Vitex, Prevent Leather and Dallas BH have used best the advantage of duty free zones. All these companies are operating in the duty free zone of Visoko. Of the other zones, the companies that stand out the most are Volkswagen and Auto Line, operating in the duty free zone Vogošća, and the company Fen in Lukavac. These companies import, export or produce goods amounting to millions.
(Source: akta.ba)
