Report says Serbia among principal importers of Bosnian weapons

Sarajevo - Export of Bosnia-Hercegovina's arms and ammunition is constantly on the rise, with Serbia as one of the principal buyers. According to the report on export and import of arms forwarded to the B-H Parliament, in 2006 Serbia was among the highest-ranked countries that bought arms and ammunition from Bosnia-Hercegovina.

In one year, arms worth around $9 million were exported to Serbia. Obviously, Bosnia-Hercegovina's and Serbia's systems are complementary, because topping the list of items sold to Serbia are ammunition and
equipment for the assemblage of percussion caps. Interestingly, two thirds of all arms and ammunition imported to Serbia come from Bosnia-Hercegovina.

Bosnia-Hercegovina's biggest exporter of ammunition is the Gorazde-based Gineks company. In addition to Serbia, the biggest importers of B-H arms and ammunition are Malaysia, Switzerland, and Turkey. Figures on the overall export earnings are confusing. According to the said report, Bosnia-Hercegovina made 50.2 million euros on the export of arms in 2006. However, according to the figures of the B-H Foreign Trade Chamber, the value of exported arms and ammunition in 2006 was just 13 million euros. On the other hand, the Foreign Trade Chamber noted a rise in the arms export in 2007. According to the chamber, Bosnia-Hercegovina in the first 11 months of 2007 exported arms and ammunition worth 17.7 million euros, which is an increase of nearly 38 per cent when compared to the previous year.

In any case, Bosnia-Hercegovina's military industry is obviously on the path of recovery. The country is also slowly getting rid of surplus and superfluous arms, ammunition, and military equipment. A big problem for the B-H military industry is that it is still not taking part in regional projects to develop and manufacture arms exportable to more countries.

As for the arms import, its value in 2007 was around 2.5 million euros, which is a 28-per cent increase compared to the preceding year.

Source: Vecernji list (Bosnia-Hercegovina edition), Zagreb, in Croatian 9 Jan 08