As of today, the information kept by the Agency for Intermediary, IT and Financial Services (APIF), containing the status and financial statements information on about 60,000 business entities registered in Republika Srpska, is published on the SEE Regional Business Registries Portal BIFIDEX (Business and Financial Data Exchange of Southeast Europe - BIFIDEX).
The BIFIDEX Regional Portal is a digital platform that represents a unique point of access to the official and up-to-date information on registered business and legal entities, which currently connects the official business registers of Serbia, North Macedonia, Albania and Bosnia and Herzegovina --Republika Srpska, while the release of information of Montenegro is planned for the end of the year.
The establishment and development of the BIFIDEX Regional Portal has been financially supported by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and the UK Good Governance Fund (UK GGF), which is currently providing financial support for technical integration of business registration institutions of all Western Balkans jurisdictions into the Portal.
Milan Lučić, Director of the Serbian Business Registers Agency (SBRA) and Chairman of the BIFIDEX Management Board, expressed his satisfaction that the four Western Balkans countries had already joined the Portal, and stated: “The business community has access to the status data (active; in liquidation; in bankruptcy; struck-off) on around 1.5 million business and legal entities kept in the official business registries. In addition to the information on the current status in the registries, interested parties are also enabled to obtain historical information on business and legal entities, and this information is of great importance with respect to business transparency in the region."
Jelena Ćetković, Director of APIF, expressed her gratitude to the donors - the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the UK Good Governance Fund, as well as to the Ministry for Scientific and Technological Development, Higher Education and Information Society of the Government of Republika Srpska, for their support in the implementation of this cross-border project.
As the Chairman of the Management Board of the Regional Portal BIFIDEX, Lučić emphasized that the implementation of this major regional project continued despite the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, in line with the plan to integrate the data of all Western Balkans business registry institutions into the Portal during 2020.
“A wide range of business information and services will be provided via the BIFIDEX Portal, which is aimed at supporting cross-border trade and business operations, as well as at improving the investment climate in the Western Balkans region”, Milan Lučić concluded.