The credit rating agency Standard and Poor’s (S&P) has assigned the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (FBiH) its first short-term and long-term credit rating of B+/B with a stable outlook.
“The stable outlook indicates that despite political challenges, economic recovery will increase fiscal revenues and reduce inflationary pressures, enabling FBiH to maintain liquidity, achieve projected surpluses, and reduce debt, including public enterprise debt,” states the S&P Global Ratings report.
However, they add that political conflicts within the entity and the state are obstacles to economic growth and that disagreements are the reason for reform blockages and the slowing of changes.
S&P notes that the economy of FBiH is relatively poor compared to Eastern European countries and faces significant demographic challenges. One of the major issues is the emigration of the workforce to other countries.
Despite this, they expect GDP growth to accelerate to two to three percent annually by 2026, mostly in line with the national trend in BiH. They also forecast that inflation will fall below three percent by 2025.
Federal Minister of Development, Entrepreneurship, and Crafts Vojin Mijatovic commented on FBiH receiving a credit rating from S&P.
”Despite the brutal campaign of lies about indebtedness and the poor economic situation, which we have witnessed for months from the opposition, this is yet another proof that the FBiH, led by this government, is economically and politically the only factor of stability in BiH. The economic ‘experts’ and ‘wizards’ of the previous government never even dared to develop a credit rating for FBiH,” said Mijatovic.
E.Dz.
