CBBH announces foreign direct investment statistics for 2018

Sarajevo, 12 August 2019

The Central Bank of Bosnia and Herzegovina (CBBH) has published foreign direct investment statistics for 2018, which shows that FDI inflows in 2018 amounted to KM 783.4 million, or 2.3% of GDP. The FDI inflow in 2018 is in nominal terms approximately equal to that recorded in 2017.

In terms of geographical distribution, the highest inflows of investments in 2018 were from Russia (KM 140.2 million), Croatia (KM 106.1 million), the Netherlands (94), Austria (87.1) and Germany (83.7).

Regarding activities, most investments were recorded in the field of financial services (banking sector) in the amount of KM 145.6 million, production of coke and refined oil products (135.8), retail trade (87.7) and in production of base metals (52).

In the end of 2018, the FDI amounted to KM 14.29 billion. The highest amount of FDI remained related to Austria (KM 2.7 billion), Croatia (KM 2.3 billion) and Serbia (KM 2.0 billion). The FDI positions have been revised for a period of five years, based on the latest information on actual economic activities and the state of companies with foreign investments.

Observing the FDI outflows from Bosnia and Herzegovina abroad, negative trends were recorded in 2018, i.e., investments abroad decreased by KM 54.2 million. The total domestic investments abroad amounted to KM 873.7 million, of which the highest BH investments were in Croatia (229.7) and Germany (163.8).

In accordance with the revision policy and on the basis of additional data, revisions were made for the previous two years with the release of data for 2018. The revised figures for previous periods largely result from further adjusting of the retained earnings calculation with the concept of monitoring the company's operating results for the observed period. The concept itself, as prescribed by the OECD definition of FDI, implies the calculation of retained earnings for flows based on the operating result of the company for the observed period.