Abolishing of previous provision for a minimum of 40 % of BH products on the shelves of retail chains, which was prescribed in the draft law on amendments to the Law on Internal Trade of FBiH, will not significantly reduce the representation of domestic products on shelves of retail chains in the FBiH because the provision was not respected, as noted from the Chamber of Commerce of FBiH.
The Chamber considers that the provision was not respected due to some objective, as well as subjective reasons.
When it comes to the objective reasons, they noted the lack of domestic products to fill a range of large shopping malls in terms of insufficient quantity, diversity of the range of local products etc, in order to reach the sufficient amount of 40 %.
In subjective reasons were included the decision of administration of large retail chains in the FBiH to ignore this provision, justifying it with objective reasons, and given the fact that the inspection authorities failed to enforce repressive measures, meaning that the provided penalties were significantly smaller than the profit earned by violating these provisions.
They noted that only promotional activities that would affect consumer awareness can give a satisfactory result in terms of the increase in demand for domestic products.
These promotional activities have to be sufficiently intense and long to produce any satisfactory effect, therefore, such measures require large marketing budgets that domestic producers usually do not have. The help of the state on the promotion of domestic products would be of great importance.
If we look at the experience of neighboring countries, it would be the best if chambers would carry out these measures in the cooperation with the Council of Ministers and governments at all levels. It is important to ensure resources from the budget for this purpose.
(Source: klix.ba)
