Canadian Ambassador in Visit to the Central Bank of BH

The Central Bank of Bosnia and Herzegovina (CBBH) has hosted today the Canadian Ambassador in BH Shelley Whiting, who, on that occasion, metthe Governor Kemal Kozarić and Vice Governors Anka Musa and Feriha Imamović. The honorable guest had a chance to inform herself on the activities of the Bank, macroeconomic indicators for BH, as well as on the future initiatives in which the CBBH will participate.

During the discussion with the Ambassador, Governor Kozarić stressed that the CBBH owes its success in work to independence, professionalism of the employees and high degree of transparency. The achieved stability has positively influenced the commercial banking sector which is the most successful sector of BH economy at present. The low inflation rate, which has been below two percent for a long period of time, and which was generated through the strict implementation of the Currency Board Arrangement, has returned the confidence into the banking sector, so currently BH citizens keep around KM 2, 8 billion in banks. Foreign reserves have increased to KM 3, 9 billion, while free reserves amount to KM 180 million. Ambassador Whiting stressed that it is excellent to see stability and low inflation rate in the region which was exposed to large inflationary shocks for years.

The Canadian Ambassador was also informed on the activities of the CBBH on bringing the banking supervision into the CBBH, as well as on the establishing of the state securities market, where the CBBH will have a role of fiscal agent for the state securities. Governor Kozarić also stressed that the CBBH is actively engaged on the establishing of the Registry of loans in the CBBH. With the help of this Registry, commercial banks would have easier insight into the credit history of the potential client and they could easier distinguish between reliable and unreliable clients. In the future, this could result in reduction on interest rates of loans extended to reliable clients.

Besides everything achieved so far, Governor said that there are still many things to be done so that BH economy could move forward, which also can be seen in some macroeconomic indicators which are not good. “BH still has a large foreign trade imbalance, while the unemployment rate, even when we include grey economy, is 19%”, Kozarić stressed and added that in order to create an environment which is suitable for business, it is necessary to complete all other reform processes in BH.

Collocutors have also agreed that BH, in order to attract fresh capital, also has to invest a lot of effort on improvement of its image. Ambassador Whiting mentioned that people in Canada, unfortunately, receive distorted image of BH, especially if they look into available statistical data which are key for eventual investors. Governor Kozarić stressed that the CBBH has developed its statistical capacities which at present represent very reliable sources of macroeconomic data, but in order to produce the exact image about BH, it is necessary to work continuously on improvement of the state-level statistics.

Public Relations Section
Almir Salihović