MINISTER SAROVIC MET WITH SUGAR PRODUCERS IN BiH

July 10, 2012 – Minister Sarovic met today in his office with producers of sugar in BiH.

The meeting was attended by representatives of the sugar refinery Draksenic from Kozarska Dubica, Agrana from Brcko, the sugar refinery Bijeljina, as well as representatives of the Chamber of Commerce of the Federation of BiH.

The subjects discussed during the meeting were the current state of production of sugar and how to create favorable conditions for doing business in this industry, and the possibility of increasing export quotas for sugar from BiH to the European Union.

These activities are part of the comprehensive preparations of BiH to provide additional trade benefits to its agriculture and food industry in the context of Croatian accession to the European Union and the upcoming negotiations on the Protocol on the enlargement of SAA/IA between BiH and the EU.

It was noted that the amount of sugar exported from BiH to the EU market exceeds the fixed annual tariff quota of 12,000 tonnes and foreign trade exchange with the European Union shows a steady growth trend in sugar exports from BiH to the EU market and in 2011 reached a level of 48 420.45 tonnes.

Given these data and the trend of increasing sugar production in BiH, Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Relations has initiated actions to prepare arguments for increasing the export quotas for sugar exports to the European Union.

The participants of the meeting thanked for the cooperation and Minister Sarovic’s initiative to secure favorable conditions for placing sugar on the EU market and expressed their expectation that the European Commission would show understanding for this request and accept talks with BiH side to increase the export quota for sugar.