International Finance Corporation (IFC), member of the World Bank Group and the Council of Ministers of Bosnia and Herzegovina in December 2012 signed the Cooperation agreement covering the areas of regulatory reform, agribusiness, investment policies and trade logistics. This common Project is a confirmation of Council of Ministers' comittment to improve the competitiveness of Bosnia and Herzegovina and make its investment climate more attractive by streamlining administrative procedures, increasing the exports, strengthening the agribusiness and trade logistics sectors.
Main objectives are: reduction of administrative burden when doing business in BiH, ensuring streamlining of administrative procedures related to import and export activities in key export sectors and the agriculture, enabling the increase of export in key export sectors, as well as strengthening the competitiveness of agribusiness sector; then, ensuring the efficiency and transparency in targeted allocation of fiscal and non-fiscal incentives, attracting foreign investments through the implementation of the Investment Promotion Strategy in Agribusiness and the Investor Aftercare Program, reducing burden on trade logistics and streamlining the customs procedures at the border through regional cooperation, liberalizing the trade of goods and ensuring further harmonization of legislation with EU practices in relation to regional free trade agreement CEFTA, reducing the costs of trading, as well as the regulatory and administrative burden related to inter- and intra-regional trade.
During the implementation of this Project, the focus will be on following:
• Implementation of qualitative and quantitative studies of the legal framework related to foreign direct investment policies in BiH by using the regulatory impact assessment methodology (RIA);
• Improvement and streamlining of administrative procedures that are comptences of the BiH Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Relations, including reduced time for processing, less documentation required, as well as streamlined amounts of fees and allowances;
• Establishment of the Electronic Registry of Administrative Procedures that are the competences of the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Relations; the Registry will be published at Ministry's web site and will include all information relevant for these procedures;
• Preparation and adoption of Competitivness studies covering 3 value chains in the area of agribusiness, i.e. dairy, meat and meat processing, fruits and vegetables;
• Preparation, adoption and implementation of the Action Plan to attract more investment and strengthening the competitiveness of selected value chains;
• Adoption and implementation of selected legal acts that will enable the export of dairy products, fruits and vegetables;
• Preparation and publishing of the Study on existing fiscal and non-fiscal incentives in BiH;
