On 10 September, 2014, in Sarajevo, the Director of the Foreign Investment Promotion Agency of BIH (FIPA) Jelica Grujic with her associates had a meeting with representatives of the Network of cooperation and post-investment support to foreign investors in BiH and International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank Group.
Reforms proposed in the Report on the Programme of the Post-investment Support to Foreign Investors in BiH (Aftercare), progress of the reforms implementation, outstanding issues of investors and how to resolve these issues, work results of the Networks in the first six months of 2014, advantages, disadvantages and problems faced by the Network.
In the first six months of 2014, FIPA together with partner institutions visited 32 companies that have foreign capital, and that belong to the group of small and medium enterprises. They employ 3,282 workers. Companies are belonging to the metal sector, the wood industry, the tourism sector, agriculture and construction industry, and are coming from the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Sweden, Croatia, Serbia, Slovakia, etc.
23 companies have already announced new investments and increasing the number of employees.
Among the problems they face, foreign investors cite the following: lack of harmonization of regulations between ministries at the cantonal and entity level, political uncertainty in BiH, way of invoicing health services for workers from different cantons /entities, uncertainty in debt collection, legal uncertainty, non-unified procedures and unavailability of information, unavailability of sufficient favourable space for investors, unregulated market / more efficient control of the market (unfair competition), increased costs for product analysis that is done abroad, treatment of by-products of animal origin, the implementation of the Law on Renewable Energy Resources, problems regarding the implementation of the Law on Spatial Planning, etc.
The meeting was attended by representatives of the Zenica–Doboj Canton, Hercegovina-Neretva and Una-Sana Canton, the city of Mostar, and municipalities of Tešanj, Vitez, Žepče, Goražde and Kiseljak.
Representatives of the Network will continue to work on removal of barriers to business activities in the country in order to increase the competitiveness of the business environment and increase of foreign capital in BiH.