Last year, the Croatian brewing sector did excellently, they generated slightly more than 2.3 billion kuna in total revenues and a consolidated profit of 284.4 million kuna, which is 17.8 percent more than was recorded back in 2018. The Zagreb brewery (Zagrebacka pivovara) has done brilliantly this year, regardless of the ongoing crisis.
As Poslovni Dnevnik/Suzana Varosanec writes on the 6th of August, 2020, in 2019, as a characteristic precursor to the turbulent period of business under the negative effects of coronavirus on the economy, the Croatian brewing sector managed to do surprisingly well, as referenced with the accompanying figures above.
According to Fina's data, which is traditionally published on the topic on the occasion of the International Beer Day on August the 5th, last year, a total of 92 enterprises operated in the Croatian brewing sector, which is four more than were registered as in operation back in 2018.
However, in this regard, a new question arises as to how many employees they had in total. Namely, Fina's announcement states that in 2019, there were a total of 1592 employees in this activity, which is an increase of 2.5 percent when compared to 2018. However, this is a slightly smaller number of employees compared to Fina's earlier announcement related to the Croatian brewing sector for back in 2018, in which they state that 88 enterprises employed 1622 employees. If this data has been taken into account when analysing the latest trends, then it wouldn't be the stated 2.5 percent of last year's growth, but in actual fact a decrease in the number of employees in the beer industry of about 1.8 percent in 2019 compared to 2018.
Additionally, according to Fina, last year's framework represents another 1.4 percent decrease in total revenue in the Croatian brewing sector when compared to back 2018, followed by an increase in total expenditures of 2.1 percent, with slightly more of the total number of enterprises in this segment operating at a profit than there were in 2018, ie 44 such enterprises (47.8 percent).
Out of 92 enterprises operating in this activity, ten are exporters (9.1 percent more than in 2018) who earned 253.2 million kuna on the foreign market, which is 18.4 percent less than in 2018. They also recorded a higher number of importers (26), which is an increase of 44.4 percent when compared to 2018, as well as a 7 percent increase in imports, which amounted to 414 million kuna. This, according to the aforementioned Fina report, resulted in an increase in the negative trade balance by 110 percent - from 76.6 to 160.8 million kuna.
The largest total revenue - 1.1 billion kuna was generated by Zagrebačka pivovara (Zagreb brewery), which was also the largest exporter. Last year, the company had 577 employees who earned a handsome average monthly net salary in the amount of 11,791 kuna. It showed a positive business result - 234.1 million kuna in 2019 compared to 233.2 million kuna in 2018, when, according to Fina, it had 560 employees who took home an average monthly net salary of 12,728 kuna, which means that there was an 8 percent decrease in take home pay.
Heineken Croatia generated total revenues in the amount of 673.3 million kuna and is in second place in 2019 according to the above criteria, while the positive operating result amounts to 64.1 million kuna. Last year it had 326 employees and seems to have had the highest net salary in the entire industry. The average monthly net salary of 12,157 kuna represents a decrease of about 9 percent when compared to 2018, when it amounted to 13,310 kuna, while in 2018, the company employed 321 employees.
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