Most of the people who have emigrated from Bosnia and Herzegovina have moved to Croatia, the government of the Federation, the Bosniak-Croat entity of Bosnia and Herzegovina, said in a report presented earlier this week.

According to the report, at least two million people originating from Bosnia and Herzegovina live abroad, which is 56.5 percent of the country’s estimated population of 3.53 million.

Nearly 400,000 people from Bosnia live in Croatia

Figures for 2017 show that 394,146 people from Bosnia and Herzegovina live in Croatia, 333,687 live in Serbia, and 200,510 in Germany. The countries that follow are Austria, the United States, Slovenia, Switzerland, Sweden and Canada.

The government cited a World Bank report saying that 44.5 percent of people originating from Bosnia and Herzegovina live outside the country. The government says that the discrepancy in figures is due to the fact that the World Bank data cover only the first generation of emigrants from Bosnia and Herzegovina. This puts Bosnia and Herzegovina in 16th place in the world when it comes to the emigration rate compared to the country’s population.

The government also cited a 2017 report by Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union, showing that 20,251 citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina had for the first time regulated their stay in EU countries.

The government adopted a strategy under which the institutions of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina were tasked with strengthening ties with the expatriate communities and including them in the social and economic development of the Federation.