Sarajevo, 15 July 2019

The Governor of the Central Bank of Bosnia and Herzegovina (CBBH), Senad Softić, Ph.D. participates in conference entitled “Demographics, Jobs and Growth: Navigating the Future in Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe”,organized by the Croatian National Bank (HNB) in cooperation with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), from 14 to 15 July 2019, in Dubrovnik, Croatia.

The focus of the conference, opened by Prime Minister of the Republic of Croatia Andrej Plenković, is to establish how the Central, Eastern and Southeastern European countries handle the changes in labor markets, brought by the economic expansion, new technological demands, migration and demographic changes to which the mentioned regions are exposed.

These topics are discussed within the sessions "The economic expansion and labor market bottlenecks", "Demographics, long-term prospects and creating a workforce for the future" and "Policy round table: labor, demographics and the way ahead".

Governor Softić also took part in the Round table with the Deputy General Director of the IMF, Mr. Tao Zhang, where he talked with Central Bank Governors and finance ministers from 14 Central, Eastern and Southeast Europe countries on potential IMF role in responding to challenges, brought by the changes in labor markets and demographics. They also talked about what the IMF can do to help authorities to successfully deal the economic challenges and raise the income of population.

During his presentation, Governor Softić addressed the challenges the economy of Bosnia and Herzegovina is facing, and marked the demographic trends as the biggest challenge.

"According to available data, over the last 20 years, Bosnia and Herzegovina lost 20% of its population. Partly, this is a consequence of the war, but the process continued due to the very strong economic migration. In order to solve this problem, serious measures must be taken at all levels, " said the Governor, pointing out that the biggest problem of labor market is an inflexible education system, resulting in a great imbalance between  the requirements of the market and the skills of the work force.

Also, the Governor stressed the underused potential of self-employment, i.e. the potential of creating the one’s own job.