Last updated: March 28, 2019
GRADISKA, BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA—A small town of some 50,000 people in northwestern Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) opened its door to investors and they noticed: Some of Europe’s biggest companies are looking to invest in Gradiska after it rolled out the industrial zone equivalent of the red carpet – a wastewater treatment plant – and became a certifiably ‘business friendly’ town.
The temptation to shave numbers and shift funds between accounts leads some companies down the dark road of tax evasion year after year. But some countries are making good progress in fighting such corruption, including Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH).
USAID makes Bosnia attractive to investors, one municipality at a time
Efforts to make small cities in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) ‘business friendly’ seem to be paying off. London-based Financial Times (FT) included such BiH cities in its 2018/19 report ranking the most promising European cities and regions for investors.
It may be worth listening to your colleague describe over coffee how her organization (say, USAID) helped implement international accounting standard IFRS 9 in the banking system of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH). To most people, accounting is a dry, boring subject. But reliable numbers, along with money itself, matter.
When we talk about our work with IRI here in Bosnia and Herzegovina, we usually discuss election monitoring or roundtable events with government or civil society leaders – not a film being shown in the Balkans, New York, and Washington DC. But this past year and a half, our work has crossed paths with the likes of, dare we say it, Hollywood.
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