TRAVEL REPORT The Hon. Michael Atkinson MP Attorney-General ...

Karadjic and Mladic .tried for their crimes .People would like to see them go to The Hague to beInvestment is being encouraged by providing a tax holiday for the first fiveyears of investment . The country now has a stable exchange rate and astable banking system . It has FTAs with all the other countries in the regionand whoever builds here, would have access to markets throughout SouthEast Europe and Turkey, a market of 140 million people . There is also anarrangement with the E . U .They feel there has been enough humanitarian aid and wanted to send amessage to the world to come and invest and do business here . BiH may bea small country, but it has a well educated population, low salary levels andhuge natural resources . There is an abundance of water and coal energyhere, making BiH the only country in this part of the world that exportselectricity .There are significant woods and forests with an average annual growth of 10million square metres of forest and with capacity to cut two million squaremetres per year . Privatisation is also imminent and there are already excellentfactories, textile industries and pharmaceutical production plants .There are good transport possibilities . A special agreement is in place withCroatia, to use Ploce which has a rail link and a huge capacity . There arethree ports on the River Sava, so producers and manufacturers are able totransport their products cheaply . A major highway is three to five years away .Tourism is very important with millions of pilgrims visiting Medjugorje . Thereis only one small part of Adriatic Coast that belongs to BiH, but as shown bythe Winter Olympics, there is great potential for winter tourism . These werethe 1984 Winter Olympics which were the first to beheld within 20 kilometresof a major city .Travel Report, Hon. Michael Atkinson, MP . and Ms. Vini Ciccarello MP., August, 2004 7 3