In the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, a new normative framework in the field of trade is being prepared. Federal Trade Minister Amir Hasičević said that the existing law is outdated and that even in conversation with employers, trade unions and consumers it turned out that it is necessary to change it because trade especially changed after 2020.
The new internal trade law will largely solve trade problems and improve the market. We have a price rounding problem. Employers pointed out that the current rounding of prices to denominations is one of the problems when forming prices, so we will certainly go towards a better and more efficient solution. In this sense, I think that we will do rounding at the level of accounts, not individual products, in order to protect consumers, minister Hasičević revealed.
According to him, the intention is to reduce problems in the field of internet commerce through new legal provisions. He states that they receive the most complaints about commercial fraud scams in the field of Internet commerce and that a completely new law on e-commerce is planned.
On the issue of the Internal Trade Act, the federal minister of commerce states that it must be accompanied by some other normative acts, i.e., laws.
- Again, we are talking about the need to adopt new laws and align with the European acquis. First of all, I am referring to the law on consumer protection as well as the law on market control measures, which is necessary in these times of crisis – said Hasičević.
The grey economy is reflected in several directions
He also announced additional steps to curb the shadow economy. He states that constant inspection scrutiny has reduced black-market work to a much smaller extent. He emphasizes the extraordinary cooperation with the Federal Administration for Inspection Affairs. One of the key problems is the non-issuance of fiscal invoices.
– We can do no other than to influence the conscience of consumers themselves to ask for a fiscal account, which is their right and obligation, and then through the Federal Administration for Inspection Affairs to strengthen this supervision – Hasičević said, pointing out that this is a continuous process.
Federal Ministry of Trade service to triparty dialogue
Minister Hasičević underlined that the Federal Ministry of Trade is trying to become a link between consumers and traders, between consumers and employees, between employees and traders, but that the Ministry must be a service in this triparty dialogue.
The process of digitization of the Ministry
He said that by coming to the head of the Ministry, he found poor technical equipment and a low degree of digitalization. At the last session, the Government adopted the Conclusion that the Ministry of Commerce is entering the process of digitalization with a plan to end in 2025, which should facilitate the use and processing of data.
- Within the scope of this digitization, I will state this fact that the Federal Ministry of Trade has created an Oil application where at the city level and at certain petroleum products you can view the prices in real time the price of oil and petroleum products. Over 200,000 of our citizens downloaded this app for free and are using it. This is just one step that shows the guideline to which to go – minister Hasičević said.
Foreign investments are seeing positive developments
Minister Hasičević also heads the Council for Foreign Investors in the Federation of BiH. He says that the coronavirus pandemic and the war in Ukraine have affected foreign investments and otherwise on capital movements, but that the new data also point to some positive trends.
- As for the Federation of BiH, what we had at the first constitutive session of the Council was the report of FIPE, i.e., the Agency for Foreign Investments, is that the first quarter of 2023 showed positive developments compared to the same period from the previous year and what is characteristic that foreign investments actually showed a trend of reinvesting existing profits. This means that foreign investors do not extract their money, but that our market has proven to be positive for them, and then they reinvest their profits in the Federation again – the minister pointed out.
Hasičević's intention is to turn the Council more towards concrete and realistic measures that will prevent barriers for investors that we currently have.
- We are somewhere in common that the so-called investment space inventory should be made, and here we will most likely have to base on a large cooperation with municipalities in order for local communities, i.e., municipalities, to provide data on what kind of infrastructure they have, and which they could offer at the disposal of foreign investors.
It is necessary to facilitate foreign investment as much as possible, as it is directly related to exports and production. Hasičević states that more than 90 percent of foreign investments in our country are related to export-oriented production capacities