Delegation of the European Commission to Bosnia and Herzegovina and the World Bank Office in BiH have launched on 26 June 2008 in Sarajevo a project ‘Accelerating Enterprise Restructuring in BiH through Active Portfolio Management of Investment Funds’. This project is aimed at provision of assistance to the local companies that were privatised in the voucher/certificate privatisation process but which are still facing poor results in their functioning due to a dispersed ownership structure.
In the scope of this 18-month project six companies in both entities will be selected to receive regular expert assistance and support in development and implementation of the restructuring plans. Goal of the project is twofold – to initiate corporative restructuring of voucher privatised companies and to transform current Investment Funds into active owners that will have capacities to increase value of their portfolios. The project will be under direct supervision of the FBiH and RS Ministries of Finance and its implementation will be ensured by the two consulting consortia led by the international consulting companies – Austrian EPIC and Cadogan Financial of United Kingdom.
Dr. Johann Hesse, Head of Operations, Economic Reform Section of the EC Delegation to BiH welcomed the participants and launching of this project underlining that it started in a timely manner, soon after the Stabilisation and Association Agreement (SAA) had been signed. “The signature of the SAA has created a new environment for business in BiH because it will progressively increase the security of foreign investments, given that BiH will have to approximate the acquis and gradually establish the free market area with the EU.”, said Mr. Hesse and added: “This will reduce the perception of risk attached to business in BiH and will potentially lead to a greater interest in privatisation and hence, more FDI, more jobs, and higher incomes.”
Marco Mantovanelli, Country Manager of the World Bank Office in BiH expressed his gratitude to the Delegation of European Commission for its generous grant provided for the project and for entrusting the World Bank to administrate it. “Joint involvement of our two institutions on this project is an important affirmation of the fundamental alignment of our assessments of the priorities, of compatibility of approaches and of complementarity of our roles”, said Mr. Mantovanelli. Underlining the importance of this project, Mr. Mantovanelli said: “This project will have an important potential for broader impact and transfer of experience and we will ensure that the results and lessons learnt emerge as valuable guidelines on increasing productive enterprise and competitiveness in BiH for all participants in BiH transition process.”
Partners to this project from the entity governments, Ms. Gordana Praštalo from the RS Ministry of Finance and Mr. Filip Ujević from the FBiH Ministry of Finance welcomed the commencement of the project and expressed hope that this project would contribute to overall improvement of business environment in BiH and to job creation.
The launch was concluded by a detailed presentation of the project implementation by representatives of the two consulting companies.
Funding for implementation of the project ‘Accelerating Enterprise Restructuring in BiH through Active Portfolio Management of Investment Funds’ in amount of 2.1 million Euros has been provided by the European Union.
