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SARAJEVO, August 25 (FENA) - Last year, global economy experienced a decline that has not been recorded since the Great Depression more than ninety years ago.
In order to protect its population, the Government of the Federation of BiH declared a state of emergency in mid-March 2020 and introduced a series of restrictive measures that were successful in curbing the first wave of the pandemic, but inevitably led to worsening economic situation and falling almost all economic indicators. The entire economy of the Federation of BiH last year experienced a decline of 3.7 percent compared to 2019, while at one point in the pandemic, 26,500 people lost their jobs compared to the period before the pandemic.
To address the negative effects of the pandemic, the Federation of BiH adopted a package of measures worth almost half a billion KM that included assistance to the most vulnerable sectors, subsidizing the gross wages of workers in companies most affected by the pandemic, and transfers to cantons and municipalities facing with a significant decline in their revenues.
Thanks to these measures, but also to the great resilience of the private sector, the economy began to gradually recover. More importantly, in the first half of this year, the Federation of BiH recorded the best results in its history in some areas.
Thus, the gross domestic product in the first quarter of this year amounted to 5.5 billion KM, which is the best result ever when it comes to the first three months. This result is largely due to record exports - in the first seven months of 2021, exports are 544 million KM higher than in the same pre-pandemic period in 2019. If this trend continues, the Federation of BiH will exceed the annual exports from 2018, which is actually the largest ever. It should be emphasized that last year, the Government of the Federation of BiH allocated 30 million KM to help exporters.
Several challenges, however, remain. The biggest and most significant is the return of people to their jobs. At the moment, there are still about 7,500 less employees in the Federation of BiH than before the coronavirus. However, compared to the worst period of the pandemic, about 20,000 people returned to work. The adoption of new laws on contributions and income tax by the Parliament of the Federation of BiH would create a key precondition for the return of people to work and the creation of new jobs in all sectors of the economy.
These laws would further increase the degree of competitiveness of the economy, but also open up simply for further growth of real wages.
By returning people to jobs, the economy would not only recover from the negative effects of the pandemic, but is on track to achieve some of the best results ever, it is stated.
(FENA) A. B.
