Governor of Central Bank of BIH Kemal Kozarić attended the session of EBRD Constituency which was held in Nicosia in organisation of Government of Cyprus.
The meeting was held as a preparation for the Annual Assembly of EBRD which will be held in Istanbul on 10 and 11 May.
In his presentation on situation in BiH, Kozarić talked about the macro-economy and the status and challenges of banking sector, finance and real sector of BiH as well as the entire region.
‘BiH has finished the year with minimal GDP growth of 0,6% and the results are similar in the entire region. Small and open economies like ours have greatly been impacted by the events in the EU and we’ll need some time to recover’, said Kozarić and added that this year will be better and that economic recovery will be faster but higher economic growth cannot be expected before 2014.
Kozarić said: ‘In the meantime, we must continue with structural reforms with the aim of making better environment for investments and creation of new jobs, which is necessary concerning the fact that BIH is one of the worst countries concerning the unemployment with 28% unemployed.’
Concerning the fact that the main theme of this year’s meeting of EBRD Constituency is energy production, challenges, opportunities and the role of EBRD in such projects, the governor also talked about unused potentials of BiH.
‘Only 37% of hydro-potentials in BiH is used, which is a direct opportunity for institutional investors like EBRD, who should consider the possibility of realization of project, because, BIH has been for years exporting electricity in the region with now rising demands’, concluded the governor.
He added that BiH has more than 1000 available rivers and unused potentials in other sectors of renewable energy sources, like geothermal, solar and wind energy.
Representatives of EBRD, headed by Johannes Seiringer will visit Sarajevo next week, where they’ll meet with representatives of BiH who are the biggest users of EBRD credit lines.
In 2012, EBRD has invest 125 million EUR IN BiH, and have confirmed that it will continue with activities in BiH.
