The food industry in BiH has shown to be quite resilient to the global crisis, because since 2008 it has marked a sharp increase in exports, a solid rise revenue growth and slight decrease in unemployment.
This was shown by the annual benchmaking report of the Association of Management Consultants in BiH-LESPnet, which included small and medium sized businesses that have an income of up to 50 million euros and employ around 250 people.
Although imports in the food sector far exceeds the export of local products, from 2008-2012 there was a noticeable increase in placements in foreign markets at an average annual rate of 12.6 percent. With an initial 409 million KM, exports rose to 657 million KM or by 60 percent.
“This increase is the result of significant growth in the export of meat, dairy and production of soft drinks and juices’’, said the report.
Imports also grew by 15 percent, or by 1.8 billion KM in 2008, to 2.1 billion KM from last year. BiH mostly imported meat and meat products, then milk, milk products and cheese, cocoa, chocolate and dessert products, beer and refreshing drinks and mineral water.
Fikret Hadžić, Professor at the Economics Faculty in Sarajevo, is one of the authors of the report, and at the presentation he said that the situation in the food sector is not as bad when compared with Croatia and Serbia.
Even if our neighbors have a stronger food industry, the analysis has shown that the total income of the BiH food sector in the period of the crisis marked a higher growth rate. Specifically, the income of companies from the BiH food industry from 2007-2011 increased by 24,24 percent (by around 2,3 to 2,86 billion KM), in Croatia it was 9,5 percent and in Serbia it was 4 percent.
Hadžić said that our companies also have a higher level of net profit margin (rate of net profits and revenues), as the main indicator of business performance. The net profit margins of BiH companies are at a solid 2,93 percent, in Croatia 0,63 percent, while in Serbia it is a negative margin of 0,18 percent.
In addition to this, the global crisis did not have a huge impact on the employment. In BiH from 2007-2011, there was a decrease of employees by 1,6 percent (from 19.321 to 19.003), in Croatia it stayed at the same level and in Serbia there was a decrease by 13,6 percent.
However, what is not in favor of BiH companies is the ratio of negative indicators of debt and equity that reveals their financial weakness.
(Source: Indikator.ba)
