The government this year will abandon the model of vertical grants for certain branches of industry and switch to horizontal grants, and for the first time grants to small and medium-sized businesses will be larger than those for shipyards, Entrepreneurship and Crafts Minister Gordan Maras said while presenting the Business Impulse 2013 program at a government session on Thursday.
The program's budget is HRK 730.5 million, double the amount last year when HRK 378.5 million was awarded in grants.
Last year, the ministry received 11,213 applications for grants and approved 2,464 of them, which was 55 per cent less than in 2011. The average amount of a grant was increased to HRK 68,685, an increase of as much as 90 per cent in comparison to 2011. It is expected that these incentives will help hire about 3,000 people.
Everything we invested last year should return to the state budget within three years in the form of new investments and tax payments, Maras said.
The Business Impulse 2013 will be launched in about 10 days, and Maras said that it would simplify and speed up procedures, ensure cheaper sources of funding, and improve the system of grants and facilities that will be awarded throughout the year.
We expect a further rise in the amount of grants, so that the average grant this year will exceed 100,000 kuna, the minister said.
HRK 187 million will be allocated for grants, of which HRK 26 million will go towards development of micro enterprises, or firms employing up to ten people which will be entitled to a maximum grant of HRK 250,000. HRK 93.3 million will be allocated for improving the competitiveness of small and medium businesses, and the maximum grant may not exceed HRK 1.4 million. HRK 51.3 million will go towards developing infrastructure and the business environment, and HRK 16.2 million towards training and preservation of traditional arts and crafts.
Maras said that nearly a billion kuna had been invested in enterprise zones so far and that the government now wanted to invest more in technology parks and business incubators.
HRK 461.5 million is earmarked for financing small and medium enterprises, mostly to increase investment through economic cooperation funds (380 million kuna) and for restructuring.
The ministry aims to encourage reducing interest rates in cooperation with the Croatian Bank for Reconstruction and Development (HBOR).
Maras also mentioned EU projects, the most important of which would be the construction in Zagreb of a regional centre for the development of the business competencies of Southeast European countries. A contract for this purpose has been signed with the City of Zagreb and a modern centre, worth 30 million euros, will be built next to the Zagreb Trade Fair Centre within the next two years, he said.
(Hina)
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