The governments of Bosnia's Republika Srpska (RS) entity and Serbia agreed on infrastructure projects worth 1.6 billion Bosnian marks (some €800 million) during Monday's joint session in this entity, RS Prime Minister Radovan Viskovic said adding that they intend to realize projects for the construction of hydroelectric power plants on the Drina river, the Sremska Raca - Bijeljina highway, the Trebinje airport and to harmonize joint educational programs in schools across the RS and Serbia.

“Every single competent ministry in the RS and the Republic of Serbia has cooperation like never before. We concluded that the previous 10 sessions over the past 10 years have led to what we have today. These are significant infrastructure projects between the Government of the RS and Serbia, which will be reflected in over 1.6 billion Bosnian marks (some €800 million). Today, we will lay the foundation stone for the Hydroelectric power plant Gornja Drina, there are three hydroelectric power plants and investments of over 1.1 billion Bosnian marks. We talked about starting the construction of the road from Sremska Raca to Bijeljina very soon, and Serbia will help with 100 million euros. Trebinje Airport is also an investment of over 100 million euros which is significant for the entire Herzegovina, which should be brought closer to Banja Luka and Belgrade. We want Herzegovina to have a much faster development,” said Viskovic.

He noted they also planned for Serbia and the RS to have identical curricula and textbooks from the national group of subjects.

Ongoing cooperation

Serbian Prime Minister Ana Brnabic congratulated the RS leadership on going public at the London Stock Exchange, saying that it was a difficult and demanding process. She also congratulated them on the results in the field of economic growth for 2020 and the first quarter of 2021.

“I congratulate Republika Srpska on two things – one is going public. It is a challenging, difficult, first successful listing. Congratulations on the excellent results in the area of economic growth, GDP, minimal decline in 2020, and the growth in the first quarter of 2021. It is bigger than the growth in Serbia,” Brnabic pointed out.

The 11th joint session of the Governments of Serbia and Republika Srpska was held in East Sarajevo, and Brabic told reporters that it was just a continuation of an already intensive cooperation. She said that Serbia has donated and invested over a billion Euros in this BiH entity since 2014.

“Some of the projects and donations refer not only to RS but also to municipalities in the Federation (FBiH) entity. At this moment, through the projects that we are launching today, the HPP Buk-Bijela, through the construction of the highway Belgrade-Sarajevo, road section Raca-Bijeljina, Trebinje airport and project that will be launched by the end of the first quarter of 2022, we will have invested 484 million Euros. Special assistance to the municipalities of Nevesinje, Kostajnica, Drvar and Dubica – will raise that amount to 500 million euros,” said Brnabic.

She added that through investments in the HPP Foca-Paunci and within the larger project of HPP Gornja Drina – the investment will be rounded up to 777 million euros.

“With other projects, education, health, donations for small projects, so far we have donated 82 million euros in 48 local governments since 2014. We will continue this in 2021 and 2022. All in all, it is over a billion Euros for projects in the RS,” said Brnabic.