Exclusive Insights: Dean Meliha Bašić Weighs in on Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Economic Challenges

In this edition of the Business show, we talked about the economy, the growth plan, and the challenges facing Bosnia and Herzegovina. Sustainable Bosnia and Herzegovina is also a topic.

The guest of the show was Meliha Bašić, dean of the Faculty of Economics of the University of Sarajevo.

Last week, the 9th BiH Economic Forum was held, organized by the Faculty of Economics of the University of Sarajevo. The focus was on the Growth and Development Plan of the Western Balkan countries on the way to the EU together with the implementation of the Agreement for the Future, which is based on the principles of sustainable development, inclusion and regional cooperation.

What are the conclusions and plans, and where is our country when it comes to this issue?

“Our goal in the constitution was to say that the goal is cooperation and not conflict and now we have no choice, and what does that mean? We won, as well as all the others from our environment, neighboring countries that also pretend to be part of the EU, despite the fact that we did not fulfill all the conditions of that first agenda, we had this shorter reform agenda and the doors of the European Union are wide open for us, if we finish and submit to the European Commission by the end of this year. However, the same task was given to all other countries, all of them were presented, and unfortunately Bosnia and Herzegovina did not complete this task, they did not present the reform agenda to the European Commission. So somehow this 9th Economic Forum came in time to identify what the economic consequences are if we don’t do that and also to say that the agenda has expanded to include one annex which relates to one additional amendment for sustainable development, which n connected. to the so-called future agreement”, said Bašić.

One of the topics of discussion is the economic situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and how and to what extent are economic experts involved in the development of the country’s economy?

“I think we have good experts, we gave those examples, I say even from the time of the pandemic, but in the end it all came down to the fact that nobody had take it into account. We present every time and send conclusions from our conferences, conclusions from the forum to several addresses, unfortunately it turns out that we are right. Now we have an initiative to collaborate with the organization on a story for the FBiH Government, however, by the time we go through all the paperwork related to public procurement, time is passing, and we don’t have time anymore, ” Bašić points out.

Watch the entire Business show on our TVSA YouTube channel.