The cost of living for the citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina has increased by as much as 50 percent in the last few years. The largest expense in the consumer basket is food, which accounts for almost 50 percent of income. Not even the last initiative to lower the price of bread bore fruit. Farmers point out that both they and the citizens are at a loss, who are not living from month to month, but surviving.
European prices, domestic wages. For the citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the time between two salaries or pensions is filled with calculations and cuts from all sides. They say that they were not surprised that there was no agreement on a lower price for bread.
“Everything is expensive” is the most common sentence we could hear from citizens on the streets of Bijeljina. Just as they started buying fruits and vegetables by the piece after the increase in price, in the manner of true survival magicians, they also found a resourceful solution for bread.
The largest part of the union’s consumer basket for January goes to food costs – 1286 marks. Bearing in mind that the average salary in the RS and FBiH is 1,296 and 1,310 marks, it is clear that bread and other food items “eat” most of the income. On the other hand, for more than 800,000 of those who have a minimum pension and a salary below the average, the situation is much worse.
Economy in the shadow of politics, reforms from party interests, not state interests. It should be a priority for the authorities, but they forget that both the state coffers and the pockets of officials are filled by businessmen and citizens. The alarm has been sounded on several fronts, from exports to the workforce.
The first alarm for Bosnia and Herzegovina’s economy – export. In January, it amounted to one billion and 170 million BAM, which is 16.6 percent less than in the same month last year. More precisely, we exported less goods by about 230 million marks. This is a continuation of the decline in exports, because in 2023 we had 30 percent less exports than the year before. More precisely, last year we exported one billion marks less goods than the year before. The profession explains the alarming data as follows:
“That data only speaks of how much BH is, after all, the economy is dependent – on disruptions in global supply chains, on disruptions in the supply line, and it is also highly dependent on its main market, the market of Western Europe”, Mirsad Jašarspahić, president of the FBiH Chamber of Commerce, points out.
“The justification that this is happening because of the situation in the EU, although it is largely true, would have to be a motivation to enter new markets, to make more efforts to export outside the EU, and by no means what we are currently hearing will be a recovery in the EU, so our exports will also recover. This is no economic policy,” says economic analyst Igor Gavran.
In addition to the drop in exports, the economy is also currently struggling with the labor force. Although there are about 270,000 unemployed people on the records of employment services, according to the latest data, it is increasingly difficult to find a worker. One of the reasons is low wages. Thus, the lowest in the Federation is 619 marks, 55 marks more than the minimum pension. For a long time, employers have been asking the reform of a set of fiscal laws as a priority issue. This would mean that less money goes to the state, and significantly more money to the workers. And there is a search for a compromise, and it continues.
The last meeting between the employers and the Government of the Federation brought a new promise, and the employers are somewhat more optimistic. Experts warn that due to the growth of inflation, urgent measures are needed.
“It seems to me that we have found certain compromises and that we have agreed that systemic solutions need time, that we will continue with their harmonization and we hope for their adoption sooner, but until that happens we will return to certain transitional solutions”, says Mario Nenadić , director of the Federation of Employers of FBiH.
“Until the adoption of a set of fiscal regulations and fiscalization, employers are invited to make maximum use, as a temporary solution, of the decisions of the Government of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina on increasing the income of workers through the payment of non-taxable amounts of assistance approved by the corresponding decree on the payment of assistance from employers and the payment of one-time assistance, and continue with the representatives of the Government talks”, said the Government of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
“They completely failed that exam and, what is most tragic, there is no indication at all even now, and here it is already spring, when anything could be done about it. A higher salary amount of 1,000 marks loses its meaning, because the cost of living is rising and soon we have to talk about higher incomes”, emphasizes Gavran.
The targets of our state borrowed from the banks for one and a half billion convertible marks last year. The total debt of citizens and businesses amounted to about 23 billion marks. Serious reforms, at least fiscal ones, are not even announced. On the other hand, the life of the common man is becoming more and more difficult.
While it is increasingly difficult for many BiHs to pay the debts, citizens and the number of people using soup kitchens is increasing, the amount of deposits kept in banks is also increasing. This is how it ended last year in Bosnia and Herzegovina. 31 billion in deposit funds to banks, of which citizen savings amounted to 16 billion marks.
And the conclusion that obviously in our country we have the poor… and the rich, in the second category mainly those on the state and political coffers, thanks to the former, Federalna writes.
