ZAGREB, October 25, 2020 - Eight-five percent of Croatians drink wine, whether occasionally or frequently, a survey shows.

The survey was conducted by Ja Trgovac magazine and Hendal market research agency in September on a representative sample of Croatian citizens aged 16 and over.

As many as 78% of respondents said they preferred Croatian wines, as opposed to 7.6% who rather drank foreign wines, while 14.5% were undecided.

The survey revealed that 8% of Croatians drink wine on a daily basis, 21% once a week, 20.4% once a month, while 20.7% said they drink wine only on special occasions. 14.8% drink wine rarely and 15.2% never.

A total of 48.4% of respondents said they prefer red wine to white, which is preferred by 44.3% of those interviewed, while only 7.3% said they like pink wine (rosé) best.

ZAGREB, October 25, 2020 - Local travel will stay at the top of the list for 55% of Croatian people, Vecernji List daily said on Sunday, citing a survey by the Booking.com platform according to which a destination's safety will be important to tourists in post-pandemic times.

Tourism was the pandemic's first victim, but COVID did not kill off the will to travel, according to the Booking.com platform's survey conducted on 20,000 people from 28 countries.

The restrictions have increased the will to get away, so 63% of the respondents said that in the future they would appreciate the freedom to travel even more..

Fifty-three percent of foreign travellers and 41% of our citizens think that travel will not be carefree and pleasant. Once the pandemic finishes, however, 41% of Croatian citizens will treat themselves to a trip, while 31% will go on a trip that they had to cancel because of coronavirus.

As many as 67% travellers from Croatia say that in the future they will pay more attention to the price, and nearly as many are planning to look for promotional offers and other ways to save on travel.

Local travel, which is currently in the forefront, will remain at the top of the list for 55% of the Croatian participants in the survey.

About 53% of them will avoid travel during peak season. Working outside the office, which has become widespread due to coronavirus, will result in long trips where work and holiday can be combined. Twenty-eight percent of travellers from Croatia have already thought about that, Vecernji List daily said.

ZAGREB, October 25, 2020 - Croatia's COVID-19 crisis management team on Sunday presented a new set of restrictions which include the maximum number of people at public gathering up to 50, and sports events will be held without spectators in the next 14 days.

Outlining the new restrictions, Interior Minister Davor Bozinovic, who is at the helm of the crisis management team, said that the tougher measures would go into force at midnight on Monday.

Their implementation will last 14 days, and after that the authorities are expected to decide whether they should be extended or changed.

According to the new measures, any contact within less than two metres in closed space and less than 1.5 metres outdoors should be avoided.

In attendance at wedding parties as well as at funerals no more than 30 persons can be present.

Other private gatherings are capped at 15 people, Bozinovic said.

All public gatherings and ceremonies can last until 22 hours.

The authorities have banned the sale of alcohol from midnight to 6am.

Wearing protective masks is compulsory outdoors when it is impossible to keep a distance.

Masks are mandatory during visits to graveyards and cemeteries.

Particular protocols are specified for plays and cultural programmes, film screenings in cinemas, religious rites, exhibitions in museums and similar events.

Workers with a high body temperature and problems in their respiratory systems are required not to go to work.

Also working from home, if possible, is recommended.

Bozinovic told the news conference that about a million kuna (€133,000) had so far been collected as fines for the failure to adhere to the restrictions. However, he says, the point is to make sure that all will comply with those measures.

Turning Zagreb's Arena into makeshift hospital, if necessary

Preparations are under way for turning  sports venues into makeshift hospitals, and Health Minister Vili Beros said today that there was a plan to adapt Zagreb's Arena hall to accommodate COVID patients with moderate symptoms who need hospital treatment.

It is possible to set up 1,000 beds in Arena, he said, admitting that " the essential challenge is the medical staff and the risk of overburdening them."

The number of active cases in Croatia stands at 11,144. There are 825 COVID patients in hospitals, and 58 are on ventilators, according to the latest data.

The head of the Croatian Institute of Public Health (HZJZ), Krunoslav Capak, told the news conference that currently in Croatia, the coronavirus incidence rate is 389.9 persons per 100,000 inhabitants, which puts the country in the middle of the rankings in Europe, while the current reproduction number, or R value, for Covid-19 is 1,99 in our country, Capak said.

October the 25th, 2020 - Croatia is full of history, and Croatian archaeologists are often coming across incredible examples and historical artefacts dotted up and down the coast, with the sea around Zadar often bearing fruit when it comes to modern history - particularly the Second World War.

As Morski writes, after finding a WWII engine on the seabed near Rivanj, Croatian archaeologists from the International Centre for Underwater Archeology in Zadar consulted aviation history experts Radovan Zivanovic Raus and Jurica Vucetic, who confirmed that this was indeed a very important find. Namely, it is a twelve-cylinder Rolls Royce Merlin engine, which, in addition to the famous Spitfire aircraft, was also installed in Hurricane aircraft.

Given that parts of the three propellers have been preserved on the engine, this is obviously a Hurricane. Historians believe that this is an aircraft that crashed in the Croatian Adriatic at some point during September 1944, but further research must confirm this thesis. They also expressed fears that this engine could be stolen by self-proclaimed underwater researchers and unscrupulous collectors and even smuggled outside of Croatian borders.

On Thursday, October the 22nd, 2020, Croatian archaeologists from MCPA Zadar, Roko Suric, Maja Kaleb and Luka Bekic, with the help of Djani Iglic from the Sveti Roko Bibinje diving club, successfully lifted the engine out of the sea with an underwater parachute and towed it to land, more specifically to the port of Rivanj. There, it was lifted by a truck crane and transferred to the City of Zadar. On Friday morning, it was successfully transported to the restoration workshop MCPA Zadar. There, it was taken over by the workshop leader Antonija Jozic, who will determine the strategy of how to best conserve the find.

We all hope that the restoration will go smoothly, so that this valuable engine, the only one to have been preserved in Croatia, will be deservedly exhibited at Sv. Nikola in Zadar, the future presentation centre of underwater archeology of MCPA Zadar.

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As Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 25th of October, 2020, Sanja Kurecic Filipovic, an epidemiologist from Zagreb and head of the Department for Monitoring Infectious Diseases, spoke about the situation with the spread of the new coronavirus and why Croatian epidemiologists have and will need to continue to alter the way in which they contact newly confirmed patients and their contacts.

She said that in Zagreb they have been waiting for days not only for the test results but also for the testing itself to take place, which isn't a sustainable way of doing things.

''We're working constantly all day and during the night. The capacity stands at 500 samples. That's an average,'' the epidemiologist told RTL.

She said that as a result of the ongoing situation, Croatian epidemiologists were forced to change their current way of contacting patients.

"It's very important to say that we as epidemiologists must change our strategy and the instructions we give people. An epidemiologist won't be able to contact every sick person within 24 hours. We're not going to be able to inform them in 24 hours, let alone talk to them in more detail about anything. We invite them to contact their chosen family doctors (general practitioners). People themselves became aware of the need to contact their contacts. As we're late with contacting patients, we're clearly also late with contacting their contacts,'' she explained.

"Apart from the basic measures, we need to understand the seriousness of this situation and nurture personal responsibility and solidarity. We need to get out of our comfort zones and influence each other. Only together can we defeat this,'' said epidemiologist Sanja Kurecic Filipovic when explaining the ongoing difficulties being faced by Croatian epidemiologists during this unprecedented crisis.

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ZAGREB, October 25, 2020 - The two biggest telecommunications companies in Croatia -- HT and A1, continue to invest in optical or fibre-optic networks, which they and the Croatian Regulatory Authority for Network Industries (HAKOM) say are a prerequisite for a country's digitisation and the recovery from the corona crisis.

Fibre-optic or optical network infrastructure, also called broadband network, enables ultra-high-speed Internet access and data transmission over long distances, as well as higher signal quality compared to copper cables.

Those networks employ light and optical fibres to deliver the communication signal from the operator to the user's house or company, and this technology is called FTTH, or Fiber to the Home.

More than HRK 437 million invested in three years

In recent years, those networks have also been increasingly built in Croatia, especially in bigger citiies, and according to HAKOM data, in three years, from 2017 to the end of 2019, HRK 437.2 million was directly invested in them, of which slightly over HRK 188 million was invested in 2019 alone.

Investment in fibre-optic infrastructure continues this year, as well, and according to HAKOM about HRK 81 million was invested in the first six months. According to operators and public institutions' announcements, investment is expected to continue by the end of this year and in the next few years. The HT and A1 Croatia telecommunications companies remain the biggest investors.

HT: Focus on NGA networks to expand area of application of optical network

Croatia's biggest telecom, HT, recalled that over the past five years it had invested over HRK 8.5 billion in infrastructure, of which HRK 1.9 billion had been invested in 2019 alone, which they said was the highest amount in the last ten years.

By the end of the first half of this year, we covered 299,000 household with the FTTH technology, and our optical based access network (FTTx) is available to a total of 455,000 households, the HT company told HINA.

A1 Croatia: Optics backbone of high-quality fixed Internet

The second biggest telecom in Croatia, A1 Croatia, also told Hina that it continued investing in optic infrastructure.

The A1 company has covered over 550,000 households with the most modern fixed infrastructure, and for the first time in Croatia, Internet access speed of up to 1 Gbps has been enabled through optical access for nearly 100,000 households.

"In addition to that, we continue to invest ourselves in Croatia's digitisation with the aim to cover more than 700,000 households with next generation fixed networks by the end of 2023, which also depends on creating a positive investment climate and on cooperation with the state on planning the allocation of development funds," A1 Croatia said.

HAKOM: About 772,000 user units to be covered with optics by end of 2023

"In the period by the end of 2023, which includes projects co-finances by EU funds for the development of infrastructure in commercially unprofitable areas, it has been planned to cover about 772,000 user units (private, business and public with fibre-optic high-speed networks," HAKOM said.

It added that the access speed currently available to most citizens through optic infrastructure ranged from 50 to 200 Mbit/s, and that users could request higher access speed from their operators because the infrastructure supported that.

ZAGREB, October 25, 2020 - Croatia has registered 2,421 new cases of the coronavirus infection over the past 24 hours, and eight people have died, the national COVID-19 reponse team said on Sunday.

The number of new infections is higher than yesterday, when the number of single-day COVID-19 cases exceeded 2,000 for the first time.

The number of active cases in Croatia stands at 11,144. There are 825 COVID patients in hospitals, and 58 are on ventilators.

Since February 25, when Croatia registered its first case of the infection, 36,380 people have contracted the novel virus, 437 have died, and 24,799 people have recovered, including 1,014 recoveries in the last 24 hours.

There are currently 28,177 people in self-isolation. To date, 445,568 people have been tested for coronavirus, including 8,520 who have undergone testing in the last 24 hours.

October 25, 2020 – Employees of one Croatian JYSK store were paid record bonuses this year. Namely, in one of the stores, each employee received a 32,000 kuna bonus.

As Poslovni.hr reports, on average, JYSK employees in stores across Croatia were paid an almost 10 percent higher bonus more than in the previous year, which is why they can testify that the 2019/20 financial year for JYSK was successful.

It is also the largest amount of paid bonuses in retail since JYSK has operated in Croatia, and JYSK's Country Manager, Vesna Kukić Lončarić, is especially proud of it.

"Of course I'm proud. Our employees have the opportunity to earn a bonus per the amount of turnover, and the bonus itself has no limit. Such a big bonus was paid because the last financial year was a great year for us," said the manager.

The bonus system in JYSK works in such a way that employees in each store have the opportunity to earn a bonus per the growth of turnover of each store compared to the previous year, which means that the bonuses paid are different between stores.

"It is important for JYSK to have a simple bonus system that everyone is familiar with and that is easy to understand. We believe that employees are motivated when they are rewarded for their success, especially since there is no upper limit for the amount of the bonus. At the same time, I am sure that this is another reason for the excellent customer service that we provide in stores. In the end, everyone is aware that every extra effort pays off," added Kukić Lončarić.

The highest bonuses were paid to store employees in the Westgate Shopping City Center in Zaprešić near Zagreb, and Varaždin and Čakovec.

Of particular interest is the fact that the 2019/20 financial year is specific also because all JYSK stores were completely closed for 40 days this spring and that, despite the ungrateful situation, it managed to achieve a top result.

The turnover bonus is paid based on working together regardless of the workplace, as the entire store functions as a team, and the bonus is shared among all employees in equal proportions. Considering that the achieved result is rewarded, this year the best store had the opportunity to get a bonus of over 32,000 kunas for each of the employees.

The bonus system is arranged in such a way as to reward top results and top employees, which in JYSK's case proved to be an excellent combination.

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