Vice-president of the Foreign Trade Chamber of BiH Nemanja Vasić stated that 250 products for which the tariff is currently paid when imported to BiH from EU must be protected in negotiations between BiH and the EU at all costs.
Vasić stated that, unless it protects these products, BiH will lose the annual revenue of 180 million BAM, which is a direct damage to the budget of BiH and the entity budgets.
“The indirect damage is the possibility that 139.000 people in BiH lose their jobs in branches dealing with the production of these products. We are talking about products made of fruit, vegetables, meat, chicken, tobacco and milk,” Vasić said.
Vasić highlighted that the EU Commission made clear that they intend to take these products off the list of those products for which the tariff is currently being paid and that this is one of the main conditions that EU laid before BiH.
“Now it is on the institutions of BiH to make sure that this does not happen. If BiH accepts this, the economy which is already at a low level will be definitely destroyed,” Vasić warned.
Furthermore, Vasić added that the only right solution is to keep these 250 products that are currently in the tariff regime in the same status until BiH enters the EU, which would provide enough time for the domestic businessmen to strengthen themselves and make BiH economy as competitive on the EU market as possible.
(Source: novovrijeme.ba)
