November 19 (SeeNews) - Bosnia's Federation entity government said on Thursday it will assist four airport operators with a total of 6 million marka ($3.6 million/3.1 million euro) to deal with the consequences of the coronavirus crisis.
The goal of the financial aid is to save jobs, secure liquidity, complete modernisation projects and provide support to overcome the circumstances caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the government said in a statement.
The Sarajevo International Airport will receive most of the money, 3.5 million marka, of which 3.3 million marka should be used to complete the modernisation and upgrades of Terminal B.
The airports in Tuzla and Mostar will each get 1 million marka, while the Bihac airport will receive 500,000 marka.
Bihac has only a small sport airport. In 2016, the Federation decided to work towards building a bigger airport for civilian flights to help boost the economy of the region. The construction of Bihac Airport could require an estimated investment of some 100 million marka. Last year, the Federation government allocated some 5.5 million marka from its 2019 budget bill to finance the project.
The Federation is one of two autonomous entities forming Bosnia and Herzegovina. The other one is the Serb Republic.
(1 euro = 1.95583 marka)