A large number of companies from both countries responded to the conference “Sarajevo – business dialogue between Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) and Malaysia”. This is an opportunity to present business and investments, as well as specific meetings of interested parties. There are many areas in which it is possible to improve cooperation. BiH has great potential in resources, and Malaysia’s experience in economic development can greatly help the growth of foreign trade exchange and other forms of cooperation.
Trade exchange between BiH and Malaysia in the last three years has increased five times, reaching 10 million euros, but it is still not satisfactory. The long distance and high transport costs make it difficult for BiH to market its products to foreign markets, so the priority is to improve partnership relations with Malaysia. Today, at the business meetings, there will be representatives from 50 BiH companies and 25 from Malaysia.
“These 10 million euros include several products and several tariffs. From BiH, we mainly export to the fields of arms and military industry, which accounts for over 60 percent of exports to Malaysia. Our goal is to present BiH in the light it is – and that is BiH as an opportunity for Malaysian companies that want to build logistics or production centers here for the European Union (EU) market, given that we have almost all the conditions for that,” said Ahmet Egrlic, president of the Foreign Trade Chamber of BiH.
“The goal of this dialogue is for the Malaysia-BiH Business Council (MBBC) to ensure business between the two countries. We have various members, delegates and 20 committees dealing with various business sectors, IT, catering and others. We will have business meetings with representatives of the business community in BiH and over a hundred meetings with representatives of various sectors,” said Muhamed el-Amin Bin Abdul Majid, president of MBBC.
BiH does not use sufficient potentials. In the first seven months of this year, exports amounted to 9 billion BAM, which is a decrease of 7 percent compared to the same period last year, while imports increased to 16 billion BAM. The Minister of Foreign Affairs of our country, Elmedin Konakovic, said that there are many sectors for educational and technological cooperation and that the example of Malaysia, as a developed world power, shows that the focus should be on technological progress, digitization and education. The focus is also on reforms on the EU path.
“Accession to the Union is one of the important factors we are working on. The opening of the European market in this case, and in other cases, would result in serious investments, an increase in our GDP, an increase in wages, living conditions and the stay of young people in BiH”, said Minister Konakovic.
The interest of companies from both countries provides optimism for future relations. BiH companies have the opportunity to expand foreign trade relations and open space for new investments from this friendly country, Federalna writes.
