FBIH ENTITY ADOPTED 2008 BUDGET

SARAJEVO, Bosnia (December 29,2007) - The lower house of the FBIH Entity Parliament approved yesterday a 2008 budget of 1.76 billion Bosnian Marks (1.32 billion US Dollars) amid protests by farmers and food producers.

The FBIH Entity Finance Minister Vjekoslav Bevanda said the budget was balanced and mostly social, with more than 700 million Bosnian Marks or 40 percent allocated for social categories, such as war veterans, invalids and civilian victims of war.

He said the budget for 2008 was increased 10 percent from this year and 53 percent from 2006, with most revenues or 1.2 billion Bosnian Marks expected to come from indirect taxes.

The FBIH Entity Parliament's upper house is expected to adopt the same budget today.

The farmers protested outside the parliament building at the government decision to allocate 53 million Bosnian Marks for agriculture, saying it would cover only half of their needs.

But this was the biggest budgetary support for the sector until now.
Some 170 million was allocated for wages in administration.