The Republika Srpska (RS) entity Trade Minister Predrag Gluhakovic said that petrol prices have already decreased on some petrol stations in this entity. He said that RS can regulate petrol prices only in some extreme cases and that there is no agreement between the distributors on petrol prices.

“We’ve analysed the prices in the period 2011 – 2018 and the highest price was in 2012 when it reached BAM 2.62 (around EUR 1.31) per litre. The lowest price was in 2016 when one litre was BAM 2,42 (around EUR 1.21),” he said.

He pointed out that traffic blockades were held on only four locations in the RS by discontent citizens.

Gluhakovic announced a meeting with Bosnia's Foreign Trade Minister Mirko Sarovic and the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (FBiH) entity’s Trade Minister Zlatan Vujanovic in order to resolve this issue as soon as possible.

According to Gluhakovic, petrol prices would be lower if distributors from the FBiH would buy oil from the Brod refinery in the RS, whose capacity would then increase to 2.5 million litres, which is currently not the case.

“instead of this, they are buying oil from abroad,” Gluhakovic said.

He added he would monitor petrol prices every 15 days and then inform the RS Government on this issue every 30 days.