- Improving the business environment is imperative without which it will not be foreign investors
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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.