The Third Jahorina Economic Forum, two-day annual event gathering businessmen, local and foreign officials, commenced on Thursday on the Jahorina Mountain near Sarajevo, focusing on the grey economy, customs barriers and other common issues the Western Balkan countries are dealing with.

This year's meeting titled “Regional cooperation as an important lever of economic development of the SEE countries” was organized by the Association of Economists SWOT in cooperation with Serbia's Association of Economists.

Addressing the event, Serbian Prime Minister Ana Brnabic emphasized the economic and financial improvements that Serbia achieved over the past period.

“We reduced the unemployment rate by half. The level of direct foreign investment is historic. We have a fair GDP growth, especially in the first quarter of this year,” she said, adding that Serbia is doing far better than many EU member states in terms of the foreign debt.

She stressed that the citizens of Serbia and Bosnia should feel the effects of reforms more than they do now. “That is going to happen. Reforms take time,” Brnabic concluded.

Speaking about the trade, she emphasized the growth of Serbia's trade exchange with Bosnia.

“Regional stability guarantees that we will have direct foreign investment and investments of our entrepreneurs. Trade between Serbia and Bosnia is increasing. 2017 was the year of the largest exchange with EUR 1.7 billion. Serbia's export to Bosnia is larger than export to China, Russia and the USA. Those are the potentials we have,” said Serbian PM.

Brnabic noted that Serbia was not ashamed of its special relations with the Republika Srpska (RS) entity.

RS President Milorad Dodik also addressed the event, saying there was a lot of room to improve the cooperation and that stability was crucial for economic development. According to him, the RS is very stable and its economy records the best results.

Dodik thanked Brnabic for cooperation and announced a possibility of forming a new ministry, which would be dealing with new technologies.