Obstacles to foreign investment pointed out by foreign investors doing business in BiH were presented, such as: no fiscal charges, terms of payment of excise taxes on tobacco products, the Law on Public Procurement, tax policy, Labour Law in FBiH and RS, the uneven application of the provisions of the Decision on quality of liquid fuels BiH, the absence of the Law on forests in FBiH, the absence of the Law on Public-Private Partnerships at level of FBiH, lengthy procedure for issuing building permits, frequent inspections, lack of development strategy of SMEs in FBiH, etc.

It was emphasized the fact that implementation of the recommendations related to the improvement of business environment is slow, and emphasized an example that representatives of the institutions of RS in 2015 didn’t answer to any of several requests of FIPA intending to solve obstacles for foreign investors.

Speaking of outstanding questions of investors, it was pointed out that some objections can be resolved in a short time, while certain must be addressed systematically and in this case it takes more time to solve them.

The Director of the Development Agency of Tešanj Ismar Alagić stressed the fact that the representatives of the Government and ministries of FBiH does not participate in the Network, although they have opted to work together, that the non-harmonized economic space in BiH is a big problem, including the lack of labour force, and that the influx of foreign investment in BiH is very low.

Representatives of the Municipality of Visoko emphasized the importance of the pre-qualification due to the shortage of skilled labour particularly in the field of textile industry in the area of ​​their Municipality, and that through GOLD Project they made prequalification of a certain number of people.

The Municipality of Travnik, in cooperation with GIZ, worked on the pre-qualification of workers in the metal industry.

Tuzla Canton has adopted a program of training and retraining of workers from office of unemployed and allocated 100,000 BAM for the retraining of about 100 people in 2016.

The representative of the World Bank Group Sabina Dervišefendić gave her support to the Network of Cooperation and stressed the importance of cooperation between all levels of governments with a particular emphasis on the importance of resolving outstanding issues of investors through the network. She also noted that it is very important that members also perform independent visits to investors, and deliver outstanding issues FIPA. Ratings of the World Bank on the results of the Network of Cooperation are very good, and recommendations are related to continuous records keeping of outstanding issues of investors.

The meeting also discussed the work plan of the Network and on election of companies for Aftercare visits in the first half of 2016.

The meeting was attended by representatives of International Finance Corporation, a member of World Bank, Zenica-Doboj Canton, Tuzla Canton, Brčko District and municipalities of Živinice, Kiseljak, Visoko, Tešanj, Ilijaš, Goražde, Žepče, Travnik, Vitez, Kiseljak and Usora.