CBBH Governor participated in the Annual General Meeting of the Bank for International Settlements

On June 26, 2022, Governor of the Central Bank of Bosnia and Herzegovina (CBBH), Senad Softić, Ph.D. has participated in 91. regular Annual General Meeting of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), which is seated in Basel, the Swiss Confederation.

At the meeting, the 2021/2022 BIS Annual Report has been presented, with financial reports. It has been stated in the Annual Report that during the previous financial year, member central banks were facing many additional challenges in the already highly complex political environment. Although the acute phase of the COVID-19 pandemic is over, its effects are still felt in many countries.

Relaxation of the measures in the major part of the world, with significant monetary and fiscal policy stimulations, resulted in a fast recovery of economic growth. During 2021, global economy also faced the challenges related to delays in global commodity supply chains. The war in Ukraine additionally increased uncertainty and impacted the production sector, particularly in energy area and agriculture, according to the BIS Annual Report.

The mentioned trends, for the first time after many years, faced many central banks with the challenges of high inflation and necessary decisions aimed at its decreasing. At the same time, central banks should adjust to the changes of financial and economic picture in the post pandemic period, and also the risks for financial stability and innovations in payment systems.

BIS has several roles, and two of them should be pointed out - the one being safe investing of member banks' foreign exchange reserves, and the other being the strengthening of international financial cooperation, particularly dialogue among financial institutions on financial stability promotion. Besides these activities, BIS also represents an agent of central banks in international payment operations, and within the activities in the area of monetary and financial stability, it regularly publishes analyses and data used by member banks in the decision making process.

Currently, 63 central banks are shareholding member banks with rights of representation and voting in annual meetings. The CBBH has been a shareholder of BIS Basel since December 1997 and it has 1060 shares.