The Government of Republic of Srpska held its 113th session today (18 March 2021) in Banja Luka chaired by the Prime Minister of the Republic of Srpska Radovan Višković.

The Government of the Republika Srpska has adopted the Information on the establishment of new agricultural cycle in Republic of Srpska in 2021.

The Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Water Management has been instructed to monitor the implementation, take measures within its competence and continuously inform the Government about completion of the establishment of new agricultural production, showing the effects of measures taken, including the measures aimed at mitigating the effects caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

The Information reads that in order to encourage current production and achieve a higher level of supply to the domestic market and domestic food industry, 75 million BAM have been provided to finance the current production and capital investments in agriculture.

The Government of the Republic of Srpska has adopted the Information on implementation of activities in 2020 envisaged by the Action Plan for implementation of the Industry Development Strategy and Policy of the Republic of Srpska for the 2016-2020 period.

Special emphasis in 2020 has been given to defining and implementing support measures for businesses and enterprises to mitigate the harmful consequences of the coronavirus pandemic on their business activities and industry recovery.

Among the most important activities has been the support to companies during the pandemic so that in March 2020 some 12.4 million were paid to 11,427 business associations which had been banned to work on the account of payment of contributions for workers' salaries.

On the account of support to the field of processing industry for the month of April, a total of BAM 5,743,733 was paid to 405 companies that worked with reduced business scope or partially stopped working, while for 183 enterprises that had been banned to work or stopped working, the support for payment of salaries and corresponding contributions for 7,934 workers has been provided.

Guarantees in total amount of BAM 7,499,450 have been issued through the Guarantee Program for Mitigating the Consequences of COVID-19 in 2020 which supported 101 loans in total amount of BAM 10,713,501 out of which 31 loans were approved to enterprises in the field of processing industry.

Also, during 2020, incentives have been provided to increase the salaries of workers in the total amount of BAM 8,035,997 while two million were allocated for co-financing investments in the procurement of equipment and technology.

The Government of the Republic of Srpska has been acquainted with the Information on the organization of the "Railways of the Republika Srpska" as a holding company.

The Government has agreed that "Republika Srpska Railways" should be organized as a holding company with dependent companies for infrastructure, passenger transport and freight transport, and that workshops for repairing railway vehicles and train traction are located within the dependent company for freight traffic.

The Government passed a Decision on the appointment of the Working Group for the Improvement of the Multilateral Compensation System.

In the past five years, almost one billion BAM of obligations have been settled through the system for multilateral compensations, with the expressed support of businessmen. The task of the Working Group is to analyze the existing system for multilateral compensations and previous experiences of all participants, explore new possibilities for improving the existing system in accordance with the best international practices, and propose to the Government of Republic of  Srpska amendments to the existing system for multilateral compensations in order to improve  the liquidity of current and potential participants in the system.

The Government of the Republic of Srpska has adopted the Information on the need to provide financial resources for the completion of works at the Faculty of Medicine in Foča.

The Ministry of Finance and the Ministry for Scientific and Technological Development, Higher Education and Information Society are in charge of providing the necessary financial resources in the amount of 500,000.00 for the completion of works at the Faculty of Medicine in Foca.