Republic of Srpska has a very favorable strategic location. Its position in the European continent allows investors to access easily the markets of the European Union and Central and Eastern Europe.
- By means of the so-called Preferential Trade Arrangements, the European Union introduced unilateral trade concessions for BiH export products that meet the technical and technological standards of the EU, free of quantitative limitations (except quotas for a small number of products) and payment of customs duties.
Also, the Stabilization and Association Agreement between Bosnia and Herzegovina and European Union was signed on 16 June 2008, under which BiH undertook to introduce customs concessions for the agreed groups of products (certain products will be excluded from these concessions) gradually over the following six years, pending the establishment of a free trade zone with the EU internal market.
- Bosnia and Herzegovina has preferential export regimes with countries of the EU, and also with Russia, United States of America, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Switzerland and Norway. As a result of market opening, business start-up in the Republic of Srpska represents a possibility of access to an extremely big market, without payment of customs duties.
- Bosnia and Herzegovina is one of the countries signatories of the trade agreement CEFTA – Central European Free Trade Agreement, which creates a single free trade zone that covers the market of over 30 million people.
Using the advantages of market opening, the Republic of Srpska is seeing constant export and import growth, where export is growing by the average annual rate of about 29%, and import is growing slower – by the average annual rate of about 10% (indicators for the period 2004 – 2007). Export growth is aided also by the activities of the Government of the Republic of Srpska on co-financing of export companies with quality production programs.
