Encouraging entrepreneurship and incentivising the growth of the economy by reducing salary contributions and providing tax breaks related to VAT are only a few of the goals of the Institute for Youth Development KULT’s initiative “Business Site”.
The initiative was presented to representatives of the business sector, government institutions and associations, all of whom are aware that creating jobs is the most important issue in BiH.
Developing efficient solutions is crucial not only for the development, but also for the survival of an already fragile and overburdened economy. The initiative, among other things, suggests an increase of funds in the budget line for entrepreneurship, along with an improved re-allocation procedure for supporting developing branches of economy, which will be determined by conducting an analysis. We are also aware that the economy is overburdened, and we will suggest solutions relating to VAT breaks and decreasing the amount of salary contributions. This is a delicate issue, but we will suggest that certain accommodations be made, along the lines of exempting subjects from paying salary contributions or perhaps subsidizing salary contributions for the newly employed, as well as exemption from all sorts of parafiscal charges, said Rusmir Pobri?, Project Coordinator.
28-year-old Predrag Borojevi? from Gradiška, knew that paying lip service to employment does not create new jobs, so, prompted by the results of a survey which showed that youth consider unemployment their biggest problem, he, as a representative of the NGO Most, opened a branch of a company called FG Group for designing and making clothes, and the brand Funky Guerrilla was released on October 6.
“It takes courage to start a business, and once you do, you realize that it takes a bit of folly too. So, both are needed. For now we have 5 employees, and we hire designers on a part-time basis. Half of our sales profits are used to pay for production expenses, and the other half we use to fund the association”, said Borojevi?.
The 30 000 BAM of initial capital was provided to them by the Youth Employment Programme (YEP), funded by the Swiss Agency for Development and Coordination (SDC).
Although fully aware that the business environment in BiH leaves a lot to be desired, they are planning to launch their clothing line in stores in Mostar and Tuzla, followed by Sarajevo and other countries in the region.
The key thing is to facilitate the functioning of economy. I pointed out that there is too much talk about the public sector, employment, problems, but there can be no public sector without the private one. Even when the private sector makes a suggestion, we always have to wait for something. However, we have no time to wait, because we are constantly being stifled, said Aida Zej?inovi? from “Bolji posao” which provides employment mediation services.
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