November the 6th, 2021 - As the pandemic starts to bite again in Europe as the colder weather sets in and the threat of new measures looms, could the likes of Egypt and Uzbekistan represent new Croatian export opportunities? Some in the know believe so.
As Poslovni Dnevnik/Suzana Varosanec writes, despite the impact of the ongoing global coronavirus pandemic on business throughout 2020 and this year as well, in the first three quarters of 2021, more than 111 million kuna of new business was successfully concluded, confirmed the Institute IGH's business report on the first nine months of this year.
The company, with a healthy core business and strategic guidelines for the coming period, in addition to challenges in the Croatian market where it participates in some of the largest infrastructure projects, is focusing its activities on expanding business outside the borders of the Republic of Croatia, with the goal of sustainable growth and further development.
At this stage of internationalisation, their focus is on announcing strides in new markets across Africa and Central Asia, mostly through the opening of representative offices in Egypt and Uzbekistan, where, they say, new, significant infrastructure projects are expected.
From January to September, the IGH Group generated revenues of close to 140 million kuna, but as they announced, they also recorded close to 170 million kuna in expenses, which resulted in a negative result.
IGH d.d. itself, according to the report, is actively pursuing a policy of increasing liquidity and shortening the period of settling liabilities to suppliers and subcontractors, and collecting its overdue receivables. Their trade receivables increased by more than 5 million kuna when compared to the end of 2020, to 26.5 million kuna at the end of this reporting period.
After the depreciation expense of 14.5 million kuna, the negative effect of interest expenses and exchange rate differences of 4.6 million kuna, IGH's net loss stands at 28.2 million kuna, arising primarily from pre-bankruptcy liabilities and settlements. The impact of this on the group's result in the third quarter of 2021 is visible through a net loss of 51.8 million kuna.
If Central Asian and African nations could see Croatian exports succeed, then it would be a more than excellent opportunity for Croatia and Croatian companies to be recognised on an even more global scale than is currently the case.
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