Republika Srpska's government has handed a roughly $938 million wind power project to a little-known Chinese-Singaporean consortium without a public tender, prompting questions about transparency and oversight in Bosnia-Herzegovina's Serb-majority entity.
The project, which is now called the Leotar Wind Farm and planned to be constructed near the southern city of Trebinje, was granted to the company through direct negotiations rather than a competitive bidding process despite legal provisions that prioritize public tenders for concessions involving natural resources.
In 2025, Republika Srpska's government signed a cooperation agreement with a consortium composed of Zhongji Construction Group from China and Zodic Energy, a Singapore-registered firm with only three employees and less than a year of documented business activity. No public tender was announced, no competing bids were disclosed, and no detailed evaluation of the investors' technical or financial capacity has been made public.
Previously, the project had been awarded -- also without a public tender -- to another Chinese-Singaporean consortium, Zhongbo Group and China Power, which signed an agreement with Republika Srpska's government in 2024. That consortium later withdrew from the project for reasons that were never officially explained.
The episode, watchdog groups say, is illustrative of how Republika Srpska's government uses murky legal loopholes to court Chinese investment and limit oversight for large-scale resource projects.
"This structure makes it difficult to verify the credibility of investors and creates risks of conflicts of interest or concealment of ties between actors," Transparency International's Bosnia-Herzegovina office said in a late December report about the deal.
The report added that such deals "leave room for suspicion about the legality of the procedure and the possibility of favoring certain investors," and that the case highlights the weaknesses in the management of natural resources and large infrastructure projects in Republika Srpska.
Loopholes And Transparency Concerns
That lack of transparency also feeds broader geopolitical concerns in Republika Srpska and the Balkans.
The European Union and the United States have repeatedly warned that Bosnia-Herzegovina is particularly exposed to murky Chinese investment practices.
During a hearing in December, US Congressman Keith Self warned that China uses economic projects in the Western Balkans to exploit weak governance and corruption, and a November report by the European Council on Foreign Relations ranked Bosnia-Herzegovina among the countries most exposed to Chinese influence in the region.
Under the law of Republika Srpska, concessions are generally meant to be awarded through public tenders. However, the same law allows exceptions if the government signs a direct agreement with a specific investor. Watchdog groups describe that provision as a loophole that undermines competitive and transparent decision-making.
Following the withdrawal of the first Chinese-Singaporean consortium, the nearly $1 billion project was rebranded from Trebinje 1 to Leotar and reassigned to the new investors, again through closed negotiations.
Republika Srpska's Energy and Mining Ministry told RFE/RL that the cooperation agreement with the Chinese and Singaporean partners was signed on October 3, 2025, but did not specify who signed it on behalf of the investors.
The ministry stated that Zodic Energy is obligated to secure permits and financing and to construct the wind farm, after which a concession agreement could be finalized. If approved, the investors would pay a concession fee of 7.8 million convertible marks ($4.6 million) to the budget of Republika Srpska.
Officials did respond to questions about why a public tender was not held or how the government assessed the credibility of the investors.
Who Are the Investors?
Publicly available information about the companies involved remains sparse.
Zodic Energy, which officially applied for the concession, was registered in Singapore in March 2025. The company has no website, no publicly listed contact details, and no disclosed track record in large-scale wind energy projects.
Zhongji Construction Group, headquartered in Beijing, claims on its website to operate in sectors ranging from renewable energy and smart agriculture to drone production and international trade, with annual business volume reportedly exceeding $2.6 billion. However, it provides no project-specific details for Bosnia and Herzegovina, and its precise role in the Leotar wind farm remains unclear.
Despite being a signatory to the cooperation agreement, authorities of the Republika Srpska confirmed that only Zodic Energy formally applied for the concession, raising questions about Zhongji's actual responsibilities and financial exposure.
Further ambiguity surrounds the ownership trail left by the previous consortium.
The withdrawn investors had established Zhongbo Group d.o.o. Banja Luka in September 2024. When the new consortium took over the project, it also acquired this local company.
According to Republika Srspka's business register, Zhongbo Group d.o.o. has no listed phone number or e-mail address. Its registered office in central Banja Luka, at Aleja Svetog Save 7A, houses mostly law firms, with no visible sign of business activity.
The company's director, listed as Zhang Wei, did not respond to RFE/RL's request for comment.
A Pattern of Costly Disputes
Transparency International's Bosnia-Herzegovina office stresses in their report that Republika Srpska has a history of controversial concession deals that later resulted in international arbitration and major financial losses.
They cite a case involving the Slovenian firm Viaduct, where Republika Srspka was ordered by Bosnia-Herzegovina's High Representative to pay the equivalent of $67 milliom in compensation to the company after unlawfully terminating a hydroelectric project.
The entity's authorities are also in the process of taking over the coal mining concession held by Comsar Energy, owned by Russian oligarch Rashid Sardarov, who is seeking more than $140 million in damages.
Concerns persist at the local level, as well. The Trebinje city assembly has approved the preparation of a zoning plan for the wind farm awarded to the Chinese-Singaporean concession, but opposition councilors say they were given no meaningful information about the investors.
The project still requires approval from Republika Srpska's Concessions Commission and the entity government, followed by years of permitting, planning, and financing. Construction, officials say, could last five to seven years.
"You come to the assembly, you are presented with such a decision, and you know nothing about the contractors who are supposed to take on this serious job," Dajana Milisic, an opposition councilor in Trebinje's city assembly, told RFE/RL.
