Fiscal Council in Meeting with IMF

The Fiscal Council of BIH held its meeting in Sarajevo with leaders of the International Monetary Fund. The meeting was chaired by Chairman of the Council of Ministers Dr Zoran Tegeltija. 

Other than Chairman Tegeletija, the meeting was attended by Fadil Novalić, Prime Minister of the Federation of BIH, Jelka Miličević, Finance Minister of Republika Srpska, and Sead Softić, Governor of the Central Bank of BIH, together with Bo Le, Deputy General Director of IMF, Alfred Kremer, Director of the IMF European Division, Paul Hildbers, Executive Director, representing BIH at the IMF, Aline Iacu, Head of IMF Mission in BIH, and Andrew Jewel, IMF Resident Representative in BIH.

The IMF representatives were eager to hear from the Fiscal Council of BIH about economic up-dates both in BIH and the region, and financial needs of BIH for 2023. They jointly concluded that two key challenges for the period to time to come are how to contain the growing inflation, and in what ways to overcome the up-coming energy crisis.

The BIH Fiscal Council members briefed the IMF representatives of policies and measures implemented in 2022 as a response to a growing inflation, which mostly referred to an increase of budgetary provisions to population generally, for the aim of keeping the achieved living standard.

The IMF representatives clearly opposed to cutting down tax burdens, but said they are ready to support implementation of targeted social measures of support to certain categories of population. A special interest was shown by the IMF representatives for climate change mitigation policies, and adjustment to them, planed by BIH authorities.

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