Due to the continuous increase in the prices of basic foodstuffs, an increasing number of citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina from the border areas go to neighboring Serbia for bread, milk and oil. In addition to groceries, they mostly buy medicines, and they say the savings are sometimes up to 40 percent.
The bridge over the Drina river to get bread, milk, flour and other foodstuffs is the daily routine of many residents of Zvornik. Pensioner Mujo Tulić also makes regular purchases of food and medicine “across the border”.
“One 20-30% at least, I’ve just been, there are none here, there are mostly there. Bread is cheaper, not even a mark, and here the mark ninety is the cheapest,” Mujo tells us.
Just for one purchase, you can save up to several marks, say the people of Zvornik. Our team decided to check whether and how much the prices are lower and how much savings there are in Mali Zvornik compared to Zvornik.
After a few hundred meters of walking across the bridge over the Drina, right on the other bank, at the dairy shop, they tell us, hundreds of people from Zvornik come to them every day for bread and milk.
“They come every day, there are about a hundred of them, they buy dairy products, factory prices. The price of milk in marks is 1.70, 2 liters of yogurt 3.40 cups, 3 pieces for a mark. Bread is ninety pfennigs and marks,” tells Rada Nestorović, a saleswoman in a store in Mali Zvornik, Serbia.
Two liters of yogurt, one bread and one liter of milk in Mali Zvornik, BHRT team paid just over five marks. They would pay 50% more for the same products just a hundred meters down.
Shopping across the border is a common practice in Bijeljina, but also in Brčko, according to consumer associations. On the other hand, citizens of Serbia also often “shop” in BiH for clothes, household chemicals and fuel.
“Goods are bought for which a VAT refund can be made immediately, so only with a VAT refund, the goods are cheaper than in Serbia. In Brčko, a lot of people come from Croatia and ours go there, the people manage because they go from product to product “, points out Jovan Vasilić from the Zvono Bijeljina Consumers’ Association.
In addition to foodstuffs and medicines, with the beginning of the new agricultural season, many farmers from our country will purchase supplementary food and seeds in agricultural pharmacies in Serbia, because, regardless of the cost of fuel, the price differences are significant, BHRT writes.
