The volume of foreign trade exchange in 2023 was 45.4 billion BAM, which is less by 2.08 billion KM, or 4.4 percent, compared to 2022, it was announced in Sarajevo at the conference “Presentation of the Chamber of Foreign Trade, Exchange of BiH with the world for 2023”.
Last year, goods worth 17.2 billion BAM were exported from Bosnia and Herzegovina, which is 1.2 billion BAM less, or 6.6 percent less compared to 2022.
On the other hand, goods were imported with a total value of 28.2 billion, which is 875.6 million BAM less, or three percent compared to the previous year.
Vjekoslav Vuković, president of the Foreign Trade Chamber of Bosnia and Herzegovina, said that last year economic trends in the world and especially in the European Union (EU) were reflected on economic activities in BiH as well.
“It seems that in the past period there was a slight panic about why we fell in exports by one billion BAM and what this practically means. Looking at all the developments, the factual situation is that we lost one billion in exports, but comparing with 2019, we increasing by six billion. This is a decrease only for the period between 2022 and 2023, which is reflected in the overall global trends, mostly in the European Union market, to which we export 70 percent of our products from Bosnia and Herzegovina, so that any economic shock that occurs on the EU market is also reflected on Bosnia and Herzegovina”, said Vuković at the press conference where indicators of foreign trade exchange of BiH in 2023 were presented.
He pointed out that in this sense it is not possible to talk about some major problems in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
“That Bosnia and Herzegovina is very stable in that segment and in the economic sense is also shown by the fact that our imports fell just as much as our exports. This is a reflection of global trends, that is, in the EU. If we had that big difference, then we would be talking about problems in Bosnia and Herzegovina,” Vuković said.
He noted that the fundamental challenges facing Bosnia and Herzegovina are conflicts that reflect on the overall world economy as well as Bosnia and Herzegovina. economy, inflation and labor shortage.
Vice President of VTK BiH Zdravko Marinković particularly drew attention to two branches of the economy that represent the backbone of BiH’s exports.
“We are talking about the metal and electrical industry and the wood industry. Together, these two branches contribute 8.6 billion BAM to the total export, which is about 50 percent of the total export from Bosnia and Herzegovina. These are the engines of the development of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the engines of the export of BiH Marinković said, AA writes.
