The Association of Employers and the Chamber of Economy of Bosnia’s Federation (FBiH) region urged authorities to declare a state of emergency on Friday in light of the situation regarding the coronavirus as this would allow the introduction of further measures that would protect jobs, employees and companies.
The current situation is severely hurting the economy and companies need help in the form of government subsidies for salaries and social contributions and a moratorium or a delay of loan payments is needed for companies and for citizens alike until the situation gets back to normal, said the President of the FBiH Employer's Association, Adnan Smailbegovic.
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“The goal is to preserve jobs and for employees to be as little affected by the crisis as possible since many businesses are already operating on a minimum,” he explained, adding that no more than 10 percent of hotel capacities are filled at the moment and the transport industry is suffering great losses, especially those who transport people and goods to Italy.
Other industry branches face complications as well. Germany is imposing restrictions and that will additionally hurt Bosnia’s fragile economy, he said, arguing that employers must cooperate with local health authorities and the coronavirus task force while new measures should be introduced, such as a compensation fund for businesses and money from the budget should be redirected to aid the economy.
“Certain funds do exist and the World Bank and the IMF (International Monetary Fund) have already offered funds,” Smajlovic noted.
Ministries in charge of transport must cooperate more with their counterparts in other countries to enable international transport which is experiencing severe problems in the past days.
“The situation is chaotic, they are stopping our trucks which are left sitting somewhere while the drivers are being turned back to Bosnia,” he said, asking that authorities establish a crisis group that would deal with the consequences the situation is producing for the transport industry.
The head of the FBiH Chamber of Economy, Mirsad Jasarspahic, said authorities must declare state of emergency as only after this is done, measures can be taken and the agency regulating the work of banks in the country can order banks to delay loan payments.
“We need a compensation fund from the Government because this is what the companies dealing with transport, tourism etc. could turn to. We also need to allow the postponement of direct and indirect taxation for a certain period,” he said.
They noted that they expected the Government to have already considered these measures but this did not happen and that authorities should have reacted faster.
The head of the metal and electronics industry association, Kasim Kotoric, said his branch is experiencing problems since the beginning of the year when the virus caused a disturbance in China. The consequences were “catastrophic” already in January.
“One by one, sectors will start suffering the consequences, and now those most affected are businesses in the textile, leather and footwear industries which have deals with Italy, but it is also spreading to the metal industry, as all of them are getting their supplies from there,” Kotoric said.
He described the situation in China where businesses could not transport goods for at least a week, but said that the state took action accordingly and put everything under control.
“The situation in Italy, where the virus spread suddenly, affected us the most and we must adjust to it, or else we will all suffer the consequences,” he stressed.
The employers concluded that they will do what they can to protect their employees but that they can not do much without the support from the government.
