Deputy Prime Minister Grcic: Investments are key to recovery

The fall in investments is the main cause of the economic slump in Croatia over the last few years, and their growth is a prerequisite for recovery, the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Regional Development and EU Funds, Branko Grcic, said in Zagreb on Friday in a lecture on the investment climate in Croatia, government measures and expectations of foreign investors.
 

Grcic delivered the lecture at the invitation of the embassies of Austria, Germany and Switzerland, and the audience mainly consisted of representatives of the Austrian Foreign Trade Centre in Zagreb, the German-Croatian Chamber of Industry and Trade and the Swiss-Croatian Business Association.
The government has begun fiscal consolidation and is doing all it can to facilitate investment, including by putting forward an investment stimulation bill. It has also introduced pre-bankruptcy settlement proceedings to keep afloat companies with realistic chances of surviving, and is considering establishing a new equity fund for companies in the process of pre-bankruptcy settlement, Grcic said.
Grcic warned of various obstacles to investment which the government was trying to remove, citing obstruction by local government officials from the opposition. He said that Croatia was craving for high technology projects, noting that four sectors alone, namely telecommunications, pharmaceuticals, finances and partly energy, were generating more than 25,000 kuna in added value per employee.
Grcic said that Croatia had great investment potential, especially in tourism, agriculture, energy and industry. He invited all major investors to address their issues and problems to the Competition Agency and smaller ones to address theirs to the Agency for SMEs (HAMAG) and the Enterprise Ministry.
Grcic said that in his opinion the forthcoming accession of Croatia to the European Union would have a beneficial effect on the national economy, but stressed that he did not expect any dramatic changes because of the accession itself.
Croatia is a small country which already now generates more than 70 per cent of its trade with the EU, so that more changes can be expected in the CEFTA markets, he added.
Questions addressed to the minister from the audience mainly related to how to speed up administration, better coordinate central and local government, and improve the justice system to ensure strict compliance with the law. Grcic said that the government had identified bottlenecks and would deal with them by enhancing the capacity of staff in the government departments and agencies.
(Hina)

 

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