Mr. Johan Hesse, the First Counsellor of the European Commission Delegation to BiH and the Head of the Operations Section for Economic Reform and Natural Resources addressed the participants of the Conference on “BiH Foreign Trade Policy – Moving towards Integration into the EU and the World Trading System“. This Conference was organised by EU-funded Project “Support to Trade Policy Development and Capacity Building in Bosnia and Herzegovina” (EU TPP) in cooperation with the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Relations (MoFTER) of Bosnia and Herzegovina in order to mark the end of the project.
Participants at the Conference were the representatives of the BiH Institutions in charge of drafting and implementing the BiH Foreign Trade Policy, the representatives of the private sector, international organisations and academia. After the opening addresses, the results achieved by the EU TPP were presented.
In his opening words, Mr. Hesse noted that the importance of the project lies in the fact that BiH now has more than one year of experience in implementing the Central European Free Trade Agreement (CEFTA) with the neighbouring countries, while at the beginning of implementing the Interim Agreement of the Stabilisation and Association Agreement with the European Union. “The reforms promoted by the Interim Agreement and very soon by the SAA, will contribute to the growth of the BiH economy.” he said.
Mr. Hesse also outlined that the necessary preconditions to improve BiH trade performance and the capacity to participate effectively in the regional and multilateral trade were to ensure that BiH has the ability to formulate and implement appropriate trade policies. In that regard, he stressed: “I am convinced that the EU trade project has supported MoFTER in advancing towards the fulfilment of these preconditions.” Mr. Hesse concluded his address by mentioning that the EU has allocated more than 5 million EURO for the assistance in this area as a “strong indicator of EU preparedness to further strengthen BiH integration with EU trade.”
“Our aim is to put all of our efforts to protect domestic trade from increasingly strong competition. In that regard, MoFTER was intensively enhancing its capacities related to the trade measures protection under this Project.”, said Mr. Vilim Primorac, the Deputy Minister of Foreign Trade and Economic Relations of BiH. He also stressed that the EU TPP Project provided assistance for almost all sectors in the Ministry in addressing the challenges of negotiations with the EU and the WTO as well as in implementing the CEFTA.
The Focus of the presentation given by Mr. Osman Topčagić, the Director of Directorate for European Integration of BiH had been the prospect of the BiH foreign trade policy development in the context of the SAA and Interim Agreement. In that regard, he briefly informed about measures undertaken by the Council of Ministers of BiH in order for the three main objectives derived from the SAA and IA provisions to be met. The first aim is to establish a free trade area by July 1st, 2013 at the latest. The second focus is to establish the Interim Committee in charge of the implementation and realisation of the Agreement. The third priority is to gradually harmonise the existing and future legislation with the Acquis Communitaire.
Mr. Istvan Major, the Chairman of the Working Group for BiH accession to the WTO, provided a comprehensive analysis of the accession process. In that regard, he welcomed the progress that BiH has made, especially in the multilateral segment of negotiations, mentioning some areas such as foreign trade, the new custom law, the enforcement of intellectual property rights where there still is a room for progress. He urged the BiH authorities to use the window of opportunity and speed up the bilateral part of negotiations in order to complete the entire process of accession. “With good effort and appropriate determination by the end of the year your country could be a member of the WTO.” concluded Mr. Major.
The EU provided 1.457.653 EURO for the implementation of this Project.
