SARAJEVO (Bosnia and Herzegovina), November 4 (SeeNews) – Bosnia’s biggest drug maker, Bosnalijek, said its net profit fell 21% on the year to 8.5 million marka ($6.4 million/4.3 million euro) in the first nine months of 2009.
Its sales revenue dropped by an annual 5.0% to 78 million marka through September, Bosnalijek said in a statement posted on its website on Tuesday.
The company said Russia was its fastest growing foreign market where sales increased to 10.7 million marka in the nine months to September from 7.1 million marka a year earlier.
Domestic sales in the first nine months totalled 43.5 million marka, up from 43.1 million a year earlier.
Bosnalijek plans to raise its net profit by 10.9% to 9.1 million marka on a projected 2.1% rise in revenue to 109.3 million marka.
The company's shares rose 0.13% to 16.1 marka on the Sarajevo Stock Exchange on Wednesday.
Bosnalijek (www.bosnalijek.ba) is one of the country's two major drug producers. The other is the Bosnian unit of Hemofarm, a Serbian company acquired by Germany’s STADA in 2006.
The government of Bosnia’s Muslim-Croat Federation, where Bosnalijek is based, is the biggest single shareholder in the company with a 19.8% stake. The World Bank’s private sector arm, the International Finance Corporation, owns 9.5%, and the Libyan government holds a 9.0% stake. The remaining shareholders are local and foreign-based private and institutional investment funds.
The Muslim-Croat Federation is one of the two autonomous parts forming post-war Bosnia. The other is the Serb Republic.
(1 euro=1.9588 Bosnian marka)