March the 22nd, 2021 - The Croatian Chamber of Commerce has decided to continue to waive HGK membership fees for Croatian entities as the global coronavirus pandemic rages on.
Mandatory fees paid to the Croatian Chamber of Commerce have been a burning topic of irritation for Croatian companies for many years now, long preceding the coronavirus pandemic which has caused tremendous issues for the income of companies, particularly those who have had their ability to work limited or banned.
Many Croatian enterprise owners have campaigned throughout the years for the total abolition of HGK membership fees, with some claiming that the institution is useless and does little to nothing to actually help them in any way.
The coronavirus pandemic has seen economic measures introduced by the government to try to preserve jobs and keep the heads of negatively affected companies above water. With various payments, including contributions, being written off for the time being, HGK membership fees were always due to be next in line and the continuation of the temporart abolition of membership fee payments is set to continue.
As Poslovni Dnevnik writes, at the ninth session of the Assembly of the Croatian Chamber of Commerce, a decision was made to continue with the measure of the temporary abolition of the obligation to pay mandatory HGK membership fees for entities/activities whose work remains banned or in some way limited by the country's current epidemiological measures.
Given that the measures to control the infection will continue to be applied in this form until March the 31th, 2021, the Assembly voted to propose to continue, at least for that period, with the abolition of the obligation to pay HGK membership fees for Croatian companies whose operations have been forced to be limited.
It's worth noting that the decision of the Assembly of the Croatian Chamber of Commerce to temporarily (from January the 1st to March the 31st, 2021) abolish the obligation to pay HGK membership fees for members of the Chamber also refers to those companies based/headquartered in the areas affected by December 2020's Petrinja earthquake, and who were prevented from doing business due to those circumstances.
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