Export Competitiveness of the Economic Sectors of Bosnia and Herzegovina

The competitiveness of the national economy, its sectors and companies is essential for economic growth and development in the conditions of the global market. This importance is especially expressed for small open economies, such as Bosnia and Herzegovina (B&H). Bosnia and Herzegovina must strengthen its export position in the most competitive sectors, so that it can develop under conditions of increasingly liberalized world trade, with growing competition. The aim of this paper is to investigate the sectora structure of B&H exports, the competitiveness, significance and performance of certain sectors, in order to identify weaknesses and possible ways o improvement. For the purposes of this analysis, the Trade Competitiveness Map analysis methodology was used to assess the competitiveness of the sector, using the Trade Performance Index (TPI). The main aim of the methodology is to determine sectoral export performance, in order to facilitate strategic market research and monitoring of national foreign trade performance. B&H has the poor export sector structure, with the low level o international competitiveness, reflected in the large share of resource intensive products and low-value processing products with low added value Improving competitiveness could be achieved by strengthening the most competitive sectors, as well as by changing the economic structure towards the development of technologically intensive and highly profitable sectors o the economy.