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Success Story

Photo: USAID/BH

Dušan Èigoja opened his dry cleaning service in only one day thanks to a newly streamlined business registration process in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Boro Vojvodic, director of Prijedor Municipality’s department of economy, said the new procedures are “much simpler for business persons.” “We are witnessing positive reactions throughout the entire business community,” he said.

Starting a business in Bosnia-Herzegovina’s Republika Srpska region once was an arduous process. But Dušan Èigoja was pleased to find out that is no longer true.

“I was really surprised to see that there are no long lines and days of waiting required,” said Dušan, who registered his business, the only dry cleaning service in Mrkonjiæ Grad, in a single day. “If only everything could be as easy as this,” he said.

He is one of more than 40 new entrepreneurs in his municipality who launched his business using fast-track registration introduced with USAID assistance. “Years ago, when I was starting my own business for the first time, I spent more than a month going from one office to another. There was always some document lacking, a certificate or a signature that caused delays. Things are so much different today. I completed everything in a day and was serving my first customer the very next day,” he said.

USAID met with the region’s prime minister, Milorad Dodik, to present proposals for improving the local business environment, such as this pilot fast-track business registration program that would allow entrepreneurs to register their businesses in as little as one day. The new concept of streamlined unincorporated business registration focuses on enabling fast and easy access to the market for businesspeople. Within two weeks, the region’s assembly amended the three laws that needed to change to support this shift.

The success of the pilot model, which reduced registration time to as little as a single day from the current average of 34 days, proved its value in each municipality where tested. Four municipalities — Laktaši, Mrkonjiæ Grad, Posušje and Vareš — have already registered more than 290 new unincorporated businesses using the new registration model.

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