For slightly more than four months since Kosovo introduced trade taxes, exports from Bosnia and Herzegovina are lower by 40 million BAM, according to the latest data from the Indirect Taxation Authority of BiH.
From November until the end of March this year, exports amounted to modest 7.35 million BAM, while only in the same period a year earlier it was 47.57 million BAM.
Top are iron and steel products, footwear, pharmaceuticals, wood and wood products, and milk and dairy products.
Kosovo has, however, managed to keep the volume of exports in BiH and it amounts to 4.5 million BAM for the period from November to March, which is almost the same as a year earlier.
Despite the modest figures, Faruk Hadžić, a macroeconomic analyst, believes that BiH should have access to countermeasures because, as he said, reciprocity in such cases is very important.
“This is a significant amount of money: Forty million BAM are the money that would enter to BiH, and there would be direct benefits for exporters,” Hadzic says.
According to him, the countrty had to somehow protect companies, but the support was left out, Akta.ba business portal reports.
“This is also a proof that the free trade zone could be broken in a unilateral manner, BiH did not want to break the agreement, but it remained without significant resources, this is no longer in the domain of economy, but politics,” Hadzic concluded.
