This report covers the main macroeconomic releases from January 6 until February 5, 2015 as well as the financial and political events that took place in Bosnia during this period.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) decided to delay the disbursement of a new loan tranche under its stand-by agreement with Bosnia because of insufficient reforms.
The World Bank estimated that Bosnia’s economic growth should speed up to 1.5% in 2015 from an estimated 0.4% in 2014. The GDP is expected to further accelerate its growth by 2.5% and 3.0% in 2016 and 2017, respectively. At the same time, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) left unchanged its 2015 growth projection for Bosnia at 2.7% in the January edition of its Regional Economic Prospects.
Bosnian government has agreed to launch talks with the European Union to enter EU’s Competitiveness of Enterprises and Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises Programme (COSME), a statement on the cabinet’s website showed.
On the corporate front, UAE’s property developer Buroj announced plans to invest BAM4.5bn (€2.3bn) in building a tourist complex in Bosnian Serb Republic’s Trnovo municipality near Sarajevo. The complex should include thousands of apartments, several hotels, trade centre and the necessary infrastructure.
The report also contains information about the resignation of Bosnia’s foreign trade minister Boris Tucic due to lack of consent over actions of state institutions on the process of issuing permits for international trade with military equipment.

Key points:
• CPI fell 0.4% y/y in December after staying flat in the previous month.
• The working-day adjusted industrial production contracted 2.4% y/y in December, deepening from a 0.5% annual decline in November due to deteriorated performance in mining and manufacturing sectors.
• The current account deficit widened 50.1% y/y in the first nine months of 2014, mainly on the back of higher foreign trade gap and lower services income from abroad.