Regardless of fluctuations that are visible in Turkey these days, the market of this country is still a market that opens a vast array of possibilities to Bosnia and Herzegovina, said MP Martin Raguz, a member of Bosnia's parliamentary commission for foreign and trade policy, customs and communications.

According to Raguz, these possibilities particularly refer to Bosnia's richest resources – healthy food and water.

He deems the elimination of barriers in the foreign-trade exchange is always an exceptionally important step for every country, for Bosnia too. Therefore, he welcomes the free trade agreement that Bosnia and Turkey have signed and that the Bosnia's Council of Ministers approved this month.

The new free trade agreement between the two countries replaced the old one, introducing a preferential treatment for the meat from Bosnia to Turkey, meaning that the export of certain groups of meat, which were earlier subject to full customs rate, is now treated by a contractual agreement.

Turkey will announce the approved quantities of unilateral annual customs-free tariff quotas for import of meat from Bosnia every year, which will come into effect as of January 1.

Raguz said that the significance of this deal lies in the fact that Turkey is a huge market and elimination of the customs barrier could further encourage the export from Bosnia to that country, enhancing the overall foreign-trade exchange between the two countries.

MP Momcilo Novakovic, a member of the parliamentary commission for economic reforms and development, assessed the new deal between Bosnia and Turkey as important for the relations of the two countries.

“The relations between Turkey and the USA regarding various barriers could open room for Bosnia and Herzegovina to export other goods that might be interesting to Turkish marked, Novakovic said pointing out that Bosnia has limited capacities when it comes to the economy. “For now, it is mostly narrowed down to agricultural products,” he added.

However, Novakovic sees a solution to this problem, if the state and lower level of authorities do a good promotion on the Turkish market.

“If we continue acting individually as we did by now, we can hardly expect something useful to happen. It is all on us,” Novakovic concluded.

The agreement approved by the Council of Ministers has been forwarded to the Bosnia's Presidency for further procedure, and the Minister for Foreign Trade and Economic Relations has been proposed as the signatory on Bosnia's behalf.