The Foreign Investments Promotion Agency of BiH (FIPA) presented today at the Parliament Assembly the Program of Post-Investment Support to Foreign Investors (Aftercare) which is being implemented since 2007, as well as recommendations for improving the business environment and conditions for investing in BiH.

Within the mentioned Program, FIPA visits foreign investors doing business in BiH and in direct contacts with investors it gets information about problems they encountered at all stages of investment and business. Within its competition, the Agency interferes in various ways to remove administrative barriers and to open the way for expansion of investment. There where it cannot itself intervene itself, FIPA involves other competent institutions.

In 2015, FIPA had 26 assistances in order to remove obstacles to foreign investors, of which 9 were resulted in a positive solution. The part of the outstanding issues are relating to the regulation or a general assessment which resolution needs a long period. Those outstanding issues are listed in the Report and represent the proposal of reforms that lead to the business environment improvement in BiH.

As the most prominent problems pointed out in the past few years faced by foreign investors are: courts slowness in debt collection, tax procedures (deadlines, documents), unresolved ownership issues, unregulated land registry (except for a number of municipalities), issuing permissions (water, electricity, infrastructure), corruption and the existence of the grey economy (unfair competition), high contribution rates on wages, complicated administrative procedures, many issues related to value added tax (VAT), complicated customs procedures (export / import), time-consuming procedures for issuing work and residence permits, issue of inspections, etc.

FIPA annually prepares a report containing these difficulties in business and provides concrete proposals for their solving at all levels of governments in order to simplify running business in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The report is sent to the Council of Ministers of BiH for consideration and adoption.

It should be emphasize the need for cooperation of the BiH institutions at different levels of governments on the creation of conditions for new investments, because we need foreign investors. BiH chronically lacks investments, which is confirmed by the slow economic development of the country and high percentage of unemployed people. Due to the lack of domestic resources to start investment cycle, we need foreign investors to invest here, employ our people, increase the standard of living of our citizens, and bring new knowledge and technology. Without them, we will not be able to move forward.