The Prime Minister of the Republic of Srpska, Radovan Višković, has addressed today in Banja Luka participants in the conference “Know How - For Economic Growth”, organized by the Association of Young Economists of the Republic of Srpska.
On this occasion, the Prime Minister Višković said that the Government of the Republic of Srpska was working to curb inflation by helping the most vulnerable categories of the population, preserving the purchasing power of citizens by increasing salaries, pensions, veterans’ benefits and social benefits, and through investments.
He said that the price increase was 7.2 percent in February, compared to the same month last year, and compared to January, 1.3 percent.
“The growth of salaries that we worked on preventively when creating the budget at this moment still overlaps with the growth of inflation. We have about eight percent salary growth and we are monitoring the situation. At the moment when we reach that ballast, we will go further with the increase of salaries, pensions and all benefits”, said the Prime Minister of the Republic of Srpska, Radovan Višković.
He said that investments were also a mechanism in the fight against “the evil that has befallen us”.
“We all expected that we would go to some normal time and activities with the eradication of the corona virus. Unfortunately, this is not the case, this Ukrainian crisis has happened, affecting us all”, said the Prime Minister of the Republic of Srpska, Radovan Višković.
He said that the rage in the prices of raw materials and energy was causing a chain reaction, adding that the Republic of Srpska was happy because it had enough electricity as one of the basic resources.
“With normal management of this resource, we protect ourselves as much as possible. We are also lucky that the price of gas has not hit the Republic Srpska at any moment, as it hit the neighboring countries or the EU. We had an agreement with the Russian Federation that was fully respected with Gazprom, and we had a privileged or protected price”, said the Prime Minister Višković.
The Prime Minister Radovan Višković recalled that the Government, through the National Assembly of the Republic of Srpska, had initiated the procedure of abolishing the excise tax on oil and oil derivatives and exempting basic foodstuffs from VAT.
He added that the Government of Srpska had procured certain quantities of basic foodstuffs.
“If necessary, we will intervene with certain foods on the market in order to prevent a possible shortage, as well as increase of prices. We have enough flour and oil. We have regular supply chains and we will do everything to keep it that way in the next period as well”, the Prime Minister of the Republic of Srpska pointed out.
The Prime Minister of Srpska said that the Association of Young Economists of the Republic of Srpska had directed this year’s conference for economic development towards providing answers to inflationary trends, digitalization and real estate transactions.
“We should not forget that in the real estate transactions, as part of all these inflationary or energy increase, there are significant disturbances that affect the thing that young people have problems to get real estate in a favorable way which is a prerequisite for normal life and family development”, said the Prime Minister Višković.
He pointed out that he said that the Government of Srpska had supported the activities of the Association of Young Economists and that he expected the conference panels to reach conclusions and guidelines that would serve the Government in creating the best decisions and measures.
