BiH and entity officials met on Wednesday to discuss the country’s economic issues and the reforms required by the EU and international organizations. Due to authorities’ failure to implement the necessary reforms to date, neither entity will be able to receive new loan disbursements from the IMF, and will have to seek alternative sources of funds to meet spending.
Bosnia’s state and entity leaders have been negotiating with the EU, the IMF and the World Bank for the past few months.
As part of the new EU initiative, the two entities were supposed to adopt new labour laws, while both the entities and the state government were required to agree to a joint reform action plan, after which IMF was ready to put together a new financial arrangement by the early September and pay the first tranche by the end of that month.
Without the IMF money, already calculated into Bosnia’s budgets, different administrative levels will run out of cash needed to service internal and external obligations by September, if not sooner.
