Nezavisne novine: The total foreign investments in BiH from May 1994. until the end of 2008. are 5.3 billion Euros, shows the data of the Foreign Investments Promotion Agency of BiH.
The country which in that period has invested the most is Austria, with 1.46 billion Euros. Then it follows Serbia with 819 million, Croatia with 611, Slovenia with 553 and Switzerland with 361 million Euros.
Hereon follow Germany, Russia, Netherlands, Italy, USA and Turkey.
Slavica Korica, Executive Director of the Agency, says that they have come to the data from the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Relations of BiH, and directly from the companies which have been investing in BiH.
The biggest foreign investors in 2008. are Slovenia, Austria, Croatia, and Serbia. It is interesting that some countries have had some very prominent "rounded" figures in 2008.
So, for example, Ireland has in 2008. invested in BiH exactly four million Euros, Poland "rounded" nine million Euros, Saudi Arabia exactly five million KM, and Lithuania "rounded" ten million KM.
Ognjen Begović, Adviser for public relations of the Minister of Foreign Trade and Economic Relations of BiH, has confirmed that it has not come to "rounding", but it is about the exact stated foreign investments.
According to data of the Agency, the most successful year was 2007., with 1.6 billion Euros of direct foreign investments, while in the period from January to December 2008., 700 million Euros of direct foreign investments have been recorded.
Among the Austrian companies which have been investing the most from 1994. until today are Hypo Alpe Adria Bank AG, Oesterreichiche Volksbanken, "ALAS Intern. Baustoff AG", "OMV Refining & Mark GmbH" and others. The biggest Serbian companies – investors are "Telekom Srbija", "Hemofarm", Commercial bank, GALAMES Beograd. The biggest Croatian investors are "HT-Hrvatske telekomunikacije", "Hrvatske pošte", Zagrebačka banka, INA, "Konzum" and others. The Slovenian companies are "Livar", "Mercator", "Petrol Ljubljana", Nova ljubljanska banka and others.
By the sectors, from 1994. until today, 34% has been invested by sectors of production, 23% banking, 14% telecommunication, 10% trade, 7% other financial services, 3% real estates, while only 1% has been invested in tourism.
Anto Domazet, director of the Economic Institute Sarajevo, says that he is not surprised that 2007. was a year with the biggest foreign investments by considering the sale of the "Telekoma Srpske".
"2008. is much more realistic in a sense of the foreign investments and it reflects more realistically the two huge problems which BiH has, and those are an evident stoppage in privatization during 2008. and a lack of the green field investments", Domazet has said.
He has explained that there is a lack of qualitative privatization programs and inability in attracting the qualitative investors.
"It is not enough to only give a support to privatization, but the strategy has to be made and those who are hiring the new capacities, bring technology, open the halls and connect the clusters, should be actively supported. The trade and banking sector which are profitable by themselves and because of that attract the investors, should not be supported", he has said.
Aleksa Milojević, director of the Institute for social and economic studies from Bijeljina, says that a good model for the foreign investments is not being applied in BiH because according to him, it does not force a model of the mass stock-holding.
He thinks that the best guaranty of preserving the economy is when a big number of people participate in the ownership over the economy.
"That model should be forced, but the model where there is a small number of people who are becoming the owners of big part of wealth, should be discouraged. Six million of stock-holders of the German 'Volkswagen' are the best guaranty that this company will succeed because millions of Germans who have the ownership in it, are surely having an interest to protect it", Milojević has said.