The summit of Central, Eastern and Southeastern European countries that gathered states in various stages of economic and social development, political status and position is the best way to reverse the negative impact of the cold war, and would open the space for new integration, said the Chairman of the BIH Presidency Nebojša Radmanović in a speech to participants of the summit that was held in Bratislava.
He said that the economic situation in the EU in 2012 was very fragile, and it is expected that the GDP in its entirety would be between 0,3 percent in the EU and 0,4 percent in the Eurozone, which will take time to move towards sustainable growth, because after several years of poor growth, the crisis has serious social consequences.
“Unemployment has increased significantly, as well as social problems and poverty. The duration of the crisis did not help the member states to continue to meet their objectives on employment, research and development projects, renewable energy, education and the fight against poverty’’, said Radmanović.
In this context, he said that in BiH during 2012 there was a stagnation of the economy, which was caused by the deepening crisis in the Eurozone and the adverse economic developments in neighboring countries and for other reasons, and it brought to a negative economic growth of 0,5 percent.
He pointed out that an important factor was the strong recession in countries such as Croatia, Slovenia and Serbia and the economic stagnation in Montenegro, and in addition to that, the drop in the Italian economy has an important impact on economic developments in BIH and modest growth in Germany and Austria, because these are countries in which BIH mostly exports.
Radmanović spoke about the high unemployment rate and a decline in foreign investment, and of the fall of foreign investments, as well as other consequences of the economic crisis that have had multiple repercussions on BiH, announced today the BiH Parliament.
“We expect that by the end of the year to reach an increase in foreign trade volume, as well as the influx of announced investments, cash flow based on the concluded stand-by arrangements, and other credit arrangements with foreign sources of fuding’’, said Radmanović at the summit.
He said that in addition to large infrastructure works (Corridor 5C), “Južni tok” from the gasification of the RS, in plan is the electrical energy projects “Ugljevik 3”, “HES Srednja Drina”, and “HES Gornja Drina”, Tuzla, Neretva, etc.
At the end, it was concluded that BiH expects from EU countries and others to invest more now than ever in the BiH economy on market criteria, and not on the basis of grants and donations, as it was in the early post-war period.
Chairman of the BiH Presidency Nebojša Radmanović participated at the 18th summit of countries of Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe that was held in Bratislava.
(Source: Fena)
