Prime Minister of Republic of Srpska Radovan Višković stated after the meeting with directors of public enterprises that current investments in Republic of Srpska exceed six billion BAM, that projects worth more than five billion were being negotiated while total investment cycles in Republic of Srpska in the next few years would exceed BAM 11 billion.
Prime Minister Višković said that yesterday’s meeting in Banja Luka with the most important officials of the Republic of Srpska and directors of public companies about investments in the Republic in the coming year was primarily intended to expedite and speed up procedures and investments.
“We want to offer Republic of Srpska as desirable destination for investments. This was the purpose of the meeting”, Prime Minister Višković pointed out having added that delays in procedures will no longer be tolerated and that in the coming days a team will be formed in the Prime Minister’s Office that will be in charge of monitoring the procedures related to the projects and reporting if any problems should arise.
“We are often told that some laws or articles of the law are problematic. I cannot accept that. There is no such law, article, that cannot be changed, adapted or modified in order to speed up our procedures”, the Prime Minister said stressing that procedures should be shortened to a maximum of 15 days.
The Prime Minister said that experts opinion will be consulted as to whether it was necessary to obtain all permits for the projects in the field of solar energy, as for some other projects.
“First of all, we are referring to approvals and permits in the area of environmental protection, because it has been proven that solar projects do not have the same impact on the environment and ecology as the wind, water or coal do. The question arises whether an environmental permit should be provided for projects related to solar energy”, Prime Minister Višković said .
He stated that the intention was not to cause any harmful consequences for anyone, but it was necessary to see whether such projects require environmental permit which takes almost a year to obtain.
“If we can speed up that part or not have it be an environmental permit with all elements like for a thermal power plant, but a shortened one – we leave that to the experts”, Prime Minister said and added that experts in charge of analyzing the shortening of deadlines will be consulted as soon as possible for thier proposals.
The Prime Minister of the Republic of Srpska stated that various approvals were required for urban planning and technical conditions which must be obtained again half a year after obtaining those in order to obtain a building permit.
“Today, I also posed the question if it were necessary to do it twice. Is it enough for one project to get all those consents once and not to have to ask for them again in half a year”, Prime Minister said.
He pointed out that the intention of the Government was to speed up the projects as much as possible in order to facilitate smooth arrival of foreign investors and to benefit from their arrival in Republic of Srpska.
The meeting in the Administrative Center of the Government was attended by the President of Republic of Srpska Milorad Dodik, Serbian Member of BiH Presidency Željka Cvijanović and the Speaker of the National Assembly Nenad Stevandić.
Source: vladars.rs
