Welcome to our “How Is It? Worldwide Edition” concept. Our country today is Bosnia and Herzegovina. Our guest is Edin Halilovic from Bosnia and Herzegovina. In this interview, you will learn what awaits an entrepreneur in Bosnia and Herzegovina thanks to Edin Halilovic.
Let’s learn about Bosnia and Herzegovina entrepreneurship!
Turkish version of the interview (Röportajın Türkçesi): Bosna Hersek’te Nasıl ? Edin Halilovic Anlattı!
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Could you briefly tell us about yourself?
Edin Halilovic, Lilium Ltd co-founder, in charge of business development.
In addition to my entrepreneurial engagement, I actively participate in higher education as a lecturer and board member of Burch University in Sarajevo. In addition, as a lecturer and trainer, I have participated in numerous training and conferences on the topic of digital marketing. I regularly write and give media interviews about trends in online marketing as well as digitalization and business in general.
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Could you briefly tell us about your initiative?
My vision is to help grow my team to become a global and innovative company with its own software products and performance advertising services. New technology companies can change the lives of people and be the best example of people’s professional development and social justice.
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What does the definition of Entrepreneurship in your country Bosnia and Herzegovina mean?
Developing an entrepreneurial mindset in Bosnia is one of the most important tasks of our generation. Having in mind the fact that our country is in transition from socialism to an open economy, there is still a lot of room for improvement in this field. People still may think a better career path is provided by the state institutions and huge state-own companies. The ever-growing and innovative IT industry in Bosnia is shifting the trends in the right direction. Younger people are now focusing on starting up and developing their own businesses. Hopefully, this can drastically change our country’s business perspective in the near future.
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What are the easy and difficult aspects of being an entrepreneur in your country?
Bosnia and Herzegovina is one of the most open economies in this part of the world, with low corporate taxes, with a vivid international trading and significant state support to the foreign investors. However, certain aspects of the local economy still need to be addressed such as, underdeveloped infrastructure, small market size, limited research and development investments and questionable rule of law. Generally speaking, our economy has a lot of potential. The most important resource here are very talented people interested in work and career development.
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What is the path an entrepreneur must follow in order to establish his/her company?
Process of establishing a company in Bosnia and Herzegovina is relatively simple, comparable to the ones in developed European countries. Should you decide to register a limited company which is the most common legal entity here, you should be able to complete the process within one month and you may need support from the local notary offices. These services are up to 750 Euros in total. Opening a business bank account is very easy, especially in comparison to the developed market where this can be challenging.
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Is there a support state support for entrepreneurs in your country, and if so, what are the conditions?
Bosnia and Herzegovina in terms of the country government is a complex country with several levels of government. All these levels are providing different types of support to the entrepreneurs and foreing investors. Usually, these support programs are encouraging employment of local people and this way you may use different grants and subsidies. General rules applied are related to the number of employees, regular tax payments and yearly revenue generated, without further complications.
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What are the tax obligations an entrepreneur will face?
Our country’s tax legislation is typical European continental legislation with a very low corporate tax rate of 10%. The Value Added Tax rate in Bosnia and Herzegovina is 17 %. Beside the company level taxes entrepreneurs are expected to pay employee taxes directly to the state institutions. The netto salaries and vegas are then paid to the employees. There are some additional local taxes but these are not significant.
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Can people from abroad undertake such start-up projects in your country?
People from abroad are welcome to undertake startu-up projects in Bosnia. Some legislation concerning direct foreign investment is more in favor to he forein investors, and they are enjoying some benefits that are not available to the local entrepreneurs.
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How much money does the entrepreneur earn on average?
It would be hard to answer this question due to the lack of the specific entrepreneur related formal data provided by the state. Having the experience in the IT sector in Bosnia, I would say that entrepreneurs are making much more money than the average employees in Bosnia.
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What are the conditions for receiving investments in your country?
Beside the standard money laundering preventive measures, there are no limitations to accept funding from abroad. Should one have the information on the origin of money from legal business activities, one will have the opportunity to invest in start-ups as well as generally businesses in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
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Any advice you want to give to our readers?
I would strongly recommend to all interested in starting a business in Bosnia to invest more time to research and visit our country. People are usually positively surprised with the welcoming appearance of the local people. Some huge global companies are already outsourcing some aspects of their business from Bosnia and this is the huge opportunity for all companies. This is especially relevant to software development and other related activities. You are more than welcome to heart-shaped land, Bo
Thank you very much to Edin Halilovic for this interview and for telling us about Bosnia and Herzegovina.We hope the whole world will know Lilium Digital. 🤗
You can access Lilium Digital’s website here.
You can access Edin Halilovic Linkedin here.
