Governor of Central Bank of Bosnia and Herzegovina (CBBH) Kemal Kozarić, Ph. D. is in visit to Tbilisi, Georgia, where the Annual Meeting of the European Fund for Southeast Europe (EFSE) was held, one of the main sources of micro financing for Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Governor participated in the panel discussion addressing the up-to-date topics like the future of micro financing in the new market conditions, reduction of credit growth, ways to prevent indebtedness, citizens' savings in the financial sector, profitability during the crisis and the problems of financing in foreign currencies.

During his speech, Governor Kozarić stressed that Bosnia and Herzegovina had great benefit from micro-crediting, but that the crisis showed all systemic weaknesses. "After start of the Central Credit Registry daily updating, and entry of the microcredit organizations data in the Central Credit Registry, all prerequisites were created for the better risk management and consolidation of the sector", said the CBBH Governor. At the panel, which was also attended by the Governors of Central Banks of Albania and Georgia, it was found that all the countries of Southeast Europe have nearly identical problems when it comes to responses to the global financial crisis, and having in mind the constant changes, it is difficult to give a prediction when the global recovery will be achieved.

The discussion also showed that Bosnia and Herzegovina has been in a slightly more favourable position than the other countries, when the foreign currencies loans are in question, since only 2.33% of all loans in BH are in the foreign currencies. During the panel discussions there were presented the researching results of EFSE's, showing that currently the biggest threat to the financial sector has been indebtedness of clients, the negative effects of the global financial crisis and lack of access to financing.

This year's EFSE meeting was attended by a large number of delegates from the microcredit organizations from BH and the whole region. Only to add here that Bosnia and Herzegovina is the second largest user of the EFSE portfolio with 16% of total investments of the fund. The biggest beneficiary is  Republic of Serbia with 25% of the total portfolio.

During the annual meeting, two icrocredit organizations and one bank from BH signed loan agreements with EFSE and GGF Fund (Green for Growth Fund - fund for energy efficiency and renewable energy resources).

The MCO "EKI" (EUR 4 million) and MF Bank B. Luka (EUR 5 million) signed the loan agreements with EFSE,  while the MCO "Partner" is the first MCO that signed an agreement on the financing with the GGF Fund, amounting to EUR 1,5 million.

At the end it is necessary to emphasize that the next Annual General Meeting of EFSE will be held in Sarajevo.

Public Relations Section

Note: photos related to this event can be found on the front page of the web presentation of the CBBH (http://www.cbbh.ba/).