BiH to hold census in October, first time in 2 decades

Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) will hold a census in October, the first of its kind in over 20 years, Damir Hadzic, Minister of Communications and Transport of BiH, said on Friday. BiH made huge efforts to find proper solutions and meet international requirements for the census, said Hadzic after a meeting with Pieter Everaers, Director of the Statistical Office of the European Commission (Eurostat). Everaers, for his part, announced the International Monitoring Operation (IMO) gave BiH green light for the census. Meanwhile, Deputy Head of the EU Delegation to BiH Renzo Daviddi and Director of the BiH Statistics Agency Zdenko Milinovic signed on Friday an agreement to support the census. Milinovic confirmed the EU will provide 9.78 million U.S. dollars for the census. Total expense for the census amounts to 30.6 million dollars. The census was planned to happen in April, but was postponed by the BiH government in January with advices from IMO. According to government estimates in 2011, BiH has a population of about 3.84 million.