Bosnia and Herzegovina’s ICT sector has started to grow during the past few years.

Analysis of the IT sector showed that this is one of the fastest growing fields of economy with a total growth of 72 % in the past five years. Today, this sector contributes with around 75 million EUR to the total GDP. The growth of revenue of software companies in BiH in the past few year ranged between 200% to as high as 1 400 %, and in terms of new employees almost 600%.

It is estimated that at present there are between 2 500 to 3 500 programmers in Bosnia and Herzegovina. IT engineers from BiH, in terms of their knowledge, skills, experience and insight into modern trends, are frequently ahead of their colleagues in other European countries. The value of software industry is reflected in the fact that 60-70% of its labour in BiH constitute young people up to the age of 35.

Annual income per software engineer ranges between 40 000 and 160 000 EUR, according to the BIT Alliance´s preliminary analysis (leading association of software industry companies in Bosnia and Herzegovina). For example, training of a new 1 000 software engineers in BiH could generate, primary from export, more than 45 million EUR per year. With 12 000 software engineers, BiH software industry would generate over a half of billion EUR of revenue.

The software industry in BiH, though not very large, is advanced and competitive on the world market for outsourcing. ICT companies from Bosnia and Herzegovina are successfully implementing different joint projects with companies abroad of all sizes in the development of particular product components, as subcontractors for product development, or as implementers of software products. BIH’s ICT companies have a rich and diverse experience in providing Software Development, Outsourcing, Project Management and Consulting. They are highly educated (B.Sc./M.Sc. in Software Engineering and Mathematics) and skilled, certified, price-competitive, but more importantly battle tested.

According to the base bon.ba by the Agency TEC, the analysis of the IT sector as well as counselling and activities related to it showed that operational revenues of companies from this field have increased by 60 % in comparison with 2010, the number of employed by nearly 97 %, and the net income has doubled. The analysis included all companies of this field, 423 in total, of which 386 are small, 28 medium and 9 large business entities. The data show that, in the period from 2010 to 2016, increase in “export” amounted to 63 %.

Also, there are other many reasons for investing in BiH, such as stable financial sector, favourable trade agreements and favourable tax system (corporate income tax in BiH is 10%). Foreign investors have the same rights and obligations as residents of BiH and they may own real estate in BiH and there are no taxes on dividends.

For more information www.fipa.gov.ba