Trade War: BiH Invented a List of Undesirable Croatian Export Companies

In the latest issue of Lider, we bring you a story about the beginning of a trade war with our closest neighbors – Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia – which is currently least beneficial for the party seeking to provoke it, but in the long run, it benefits no one.

As is well known, the Ministry of Foreign Trade of BiH, led by Minister Mirko Šarović, has published an expanded list of Croatian companies banned from importing into BiH. Shortly after the publication of the infamous list, it turned out that it included companies that mostly no longer exist, operate under a different name, or are not food product exporters at all.

Lider’s journalistic duo Matilda Bačelić and Nikola Sučec investigated the story from several perspectives. It turned out that there are those who consider the whole case to be exaggerated, as Krešimir Pajić, the director of Koestlin, characterized ‘Šarović’s list’ as ‘invented’.

Marjan Vučak, Meggle’s director for the Adriatic region, warns Lider about the fact that the list of companies that are not allowed to export is confusingly compiled, as it includes companies that have changed names due to ownership changes, restructuring, or bankruptcy, or that no longer exist at all.

An interesting fact was revealed in the BiH Veterinary Office – on that office’s list, there are 187 Croatian companies, of which as many as 176 have export numbers, and only 11 are small and unknown. In the same office, there is not a single name on the list of Bosnian companies allowed to import into Croatia. Agricultural analyst Stipe Bilić connects the current situation with examples from the past, stating that such spins have appeared over the past fifteen years motivated by politics, under the guise of consumer protection.

Branko Bobetić, director of Croatiastočara, warns that nothing has been done in BiH to prepare entrepreneurs for new business conditions with Croatia, but it is well known that the publication of the list is part of BiH’s ‘style’.

The article also reveals how problems for both domestic companies and consumers in BiH could arise as early as next month when Croatian products will significantly increase in price. Namely, although they are already being exported with customs duties, final consumers in BiH do not feel this yet as they are consuming previously imported stocks.

All hopes are therefore placed in the negotiations that the European Commission (EC) is conducting on behalf of Croatia, i.e., the European Union, with BiH, but Lider learns from sources close to the Government that Croatian institutions are completely inactive and behave as if they are not too concerned about the outcome.

We also write about another front in a potential trade war that could open towards Serbia, where the trade in cigarettes is disputed. If the customs duty on cigarettes jumps from 15 to 57 percent, TDR will become uncompetitive in Serbia. Serbian Prime Minister Ivica Dačić is simultaneously trying to ‘break’ the EC and extract as many benefits from the negotiations by requesting an increase in Serbia’s quotas for sugar exports to the EU. European Commissioner for Enlargement Štefan Fule is pressuring Dačić, and Serbian media describe this pressure as ‘signing everything that Fule requests’.

How the whole case could be resolved, as well as what favorable and fortunate circumstances exist for Croatia in the face of the neighbors’ unyielding policy, can be read in the new issue of Lider, which arrives at kiosks on Thursday.