ZAGREB, 9 November, 2021 - An estimated 300 people rallied on Monday evening in Zagreb's St Mark's Square where the buildings housing the government and the parliament are located, to protest against the announced introduction of COVID certificate mandate as of 15 November.

According to media outlets, it was not known whether the rally had been reported in advance to the authorities, and the police forces came to the square soon after the gathering began, and then protesters dispersed.

Some of the protesters were carrying plastic lanterns, claiming that they had brought "a symbolic light against the darkness" which would be imposed on the country by the introduction of COVID certificates.

They said that they would come outside Government House every evening.

An association of conservative Catholic activists, called Vigilare, reported on the Facebook two days ago that they had the right "to bring light in the darkness."

The president of the Croatian Association for the Promotion of Patients' Rights, Jasna Karačić, told Hina on Monday morning that there was great resistance to vaccination and distrust of the profession in Croatia due to disinformation on COVID-19 that was spreading on social networks.

Disinformation is spreading on social networks much faster than scientific information is spreading. This is also present in other countries, but in Croatia it is pronounced the most in the entire EU, Karačić said.

November 9, 2021 - Basketball superstar Dražen Petrović was tragically killed in a car accident in Germany 28 years ago. His mother, Biserka, spoke of having the Brooklyn Nets in Croatia to honor Dražen on the 30th anniversary of his passing in 2023. 

On the HRT Sport and Music show, Biserka Petrović exclusively announced the arrival of the 'New Jersey Nets' in Croatia while presenting the recently published book The Greatest Successes of Croatian Sports by Davor Lulić and Dražen Beraković. In addition, the mother of deceased basketballer Dražen Petrović spoke to Lovorko Magdić about what they have in mind to honor one of Croatia's greatest. 

"If we don't write it down, it didn't happen. We have so many athletes in all sports that we need to have two or three more of these books," Petrović said to HRT.

"In front of the Dražen Museum is the Light of Croatian Sport; it is not just for him; it is for all athletes. Isn't it nice to preserve everything and to take care of our heritage and the athletes who left their legacy? So we have to work on that," she added and then revealed her plans.

"The foundation has made its expansion of the Museum, and we are working on the project. For the 30th anniversary, we are negotiating with the New Jersey Nets (Dražen played for the New Jersey Nets from 1991 to 1993, though the club is now called the Brooklyn Nets) about playing a game in Croatia. There is no specific date yet; we will leave it to them when the date suits them, we will not tie it to a birthday or anniversary, but something big has to be done for the 30th anniversary."

Could this mean the Brooklyn Nets will face the Croatia national team?

"We will see, it is difficult to put together the best players from Europe, but we will work on that. I can't say more now, but we are working on it," concluded Biserka Petrović.

On June 7, 1993, Dražen Petrović, a member of the Croatia basketball team and one of the best Croatian athletes of all time, was killed in a car accident on the motorway near the German city of Ingolstadt.

He was a basketball player and a role model, the Mozart of sports, but tragically died at the age of 29 during the peak of his playing career.

Dražen played his last match against Slovenia in the qualifications for the European Championship in Wroclaw. It was June 5, 1993. The Croatia national team returned from Poland by plane, but Dražen set off in a car with his girlfriend behind the wheel, with no idea it would be his last drive.

Dražen was born on October 22, 1964, in Šibenik. His love for basketball has been with him since he was a small child. His exceptional perseverance and dedication to daily training with undeniable talent quickly made him one of the best in all age groups.

At the age of sixteen, he joined the Šibenik first team. He brought his hometown to the title of Yugoslav champion in 1983.

Cibona and Real Madrid were unreachable to all European clubs when Dražen played in their ranks. Then, having achieved everything in Europe, he went to the strongest league globally - the NBA.

Although he was on the bench more than he played for the first season due to politics inside Portland, he showed his phenomenal talent with the New Jersey Nets two years later. He was the team’s top shooter in 1992 (primarily at three-pointers) and the best European to have played in the NBA league so far. 

That year, Dražen led the Croatia national team to its greatest success, silver at the Olympic Games in Barcelona, ​​in the final clash with the only real Dream Team played by the best representatives of the NBA and some of the best basketball players in history - Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, Scottie Pippen, and others.

As a player, he received the Franjo Bučar State Award for Sports in 1992, and posthumously, this time for his life's work, he received the same award in 2002.

He was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 2002.

To read more about sport in Croatia, follow TCN's dedicated page.

ZAGREB, 9 November, 2021 - Prime Minister Andrej Plenković on Monday once again appealed to citizens to get vaccinated against COVID-19, saying it is the best and most effective protection.

Speaking to the press after a meeting of his HDZ party's Presidency and National Council, he said Interior Minister Davor Božinović and Health Minister Vili Beroš informed them of the anti-epidemic measures being taken.

Plenković said vaccination was again picking up and that he hoped it would accelerate even more.

Speaking of a recent climate conference in Glasgow, he said that in the years ahead the government and the HDZ would promote as much as possible the reduction of fossil fuel use and turning to low-carbon energy sources.

Regarding a Supreme Court ruling under which the HDZ was convicted for corruption, Plenković said the party decided not to ask the Constitutional Court to say if the sentence was constitutional because they concluded that it was not necessary.

This story has been put ad acta both legally and in terms of obligation, he added.

November 9, 2021 - It is more than 5 years since European Coastal Airlines stopped its seaplane service in Croatia. Will ACI Air succeed where others have failed?

It was really great when it lasted, with the potential (ah, the P word again) to transform not only tourism, but also business and life in Croatia. The story of European Coastal Airlines has been well-documented, but I will never forget one incredible day when I left my apartment in Jelsa at 08:45, took off from Jelsa harbour to 09:00, had time for a meeting and a quick beer at Resnik (by Split Airport) at 09:15, then departed for Pula at 10:00, before arriving at 11:00 with quite simply the most spectacular views ever from a plane. My driver was waiting in Pula to take me to Novigrad for lunch and the business I was there to conduct. I left Novigrad at 16:30, leaving plenty of time to catch the 18:00 return flight to Resnik. A 15-minute wait and then the final journey to Jelsa and I was in the pub on the main square by 19:30.

All in under 12 hours.

ECA is no more, and there have been several attempts at restarting a seaplane service in Croatia. I have learned over the years to be a little wary of new airline announcements, but I do have a soft spot for the seaplane story. And as ExYuAviation reports, the concept of ACI Air - to utilise its marinas - could be an interesting new angle. 

Rather than get too excited (you can read the full story in the link in the previous paragraph),here is what ACI’s head of Special Projects, Zdravko Delic, said at the recent Aviation Arena Webinar:

“We are launching our airline with a focus on hydro flights, similar to what ECA established a few years ago. Unfortunately, that company went into bankruptcy. However, ACI sees an opportunity in the market. We plan to operate Cessna Grand Caravan amphibian aircraft. We will acquire one turboprop, while another two will be leased. Depending on demand, the airline will have up to five aircraft in its fleet.”

“We opted for the Cessna Caravan because it can land at all of ACI’s marinas, which we have 22 of. Furthermore, we have acquired six seaports that were previously established by ECA. Therefore, we will have some thirty departure points on the Adriatic. Our plan is to acquire our first aircraft by the end of the year, and we are in the process of obtaining an Air Operator’s Certificate (AOC). We expect to have it within the next few months. Our plan is to launch operations by May 1, 2022 at the latest.”

More on the story and the reaction of aviation enthusiasts in the region on ExYuAviation.

November the 9th, 2021 - We're now in the part of the year when the classic seasonal slump in terms of the Croatian employment rate usually happens, but owing to the pandemic and some of the trends it has created, things are looking a bit different.

As Poslovni Dnevnik/Jadranka Dozan writes, due to slow but steady domestic economic recovery, the total Croatian employment rate exceeded the situation before the pandemic-induced crisis. The recovery in employment and demand for workers is currently being overshadowed by a parallel process of increasing the number of voluntary liquidations and initiating bankruptcies of companies who no longer see a prospect for their businesses to continue operating, which has been going on since the second quarter of the year.

Likewise, in contrast to Croatian employment, which has improved compared to pre-pandemic figures, the number of unemployed people is even higher than it was back during comparable levels from the year before last, analysts at the Croatian National Bank pointed out in a new review of economic trends.

This, they say, points to the increasing employment of workers from countries outside of Croatia and the EU in order to partially offset the growth in demand for labour.

The growing demand for labour is also suggested by the value of the index by which the Zagreb Institute of Economics monitors its current situation through online job vacancies, and the EIZ accompanied it with the title "looking for more workers" and commenting that the data "still offer reasons for optimism".

This is the OVI index (Online Vacancy Index), which was developed by the Institute in cooperation with the MojPosao (MyJob) portal and which, back in October, indicated a higher demand for work compared to last year, but also compared to that of the level of 2019. Demand for work measured by this index is, they say, around 39 percent higher than it was back October 2020 and about 9 percent higher than the pre-pandemic October of 2019.

Last month was the sixth in a row in which the demand for labour in Croatia exceeded the pre-pandemic months, and during October this year, retail workers, waiters, teachers, chefs and warehouse workers were most in demand, the OVI index commented. Almost half of the advertised jobs were related to a fixed-term contract, as well as an increase in the number of advertisements in which the possibility of working from home is explicitly mentioned.

Over more recent days, the employment campaign of Novigrad Laguna, which manages 13 hotels, 4 camps, a settlement of 80 villas, as well as 92 apartments in Novigrad, on Krk and Korcula and the Peljesac peninsula, has attracted special attention. As part of the started preparatory activities for the next tourist season, Aminess hotels and camps have launched a campaign to attract as many as a thousand employees, offering them stimulating monthly rewards, Christmas bonuses, accommodation in a modern hotel for employees, a hot meal, as well as education programmes in which, in 2022, they intend to invest almost one million kuna.

In the business community, so much demand for workers in Aminess hotels and camps is partly related to unofficial information that the company is on its way to acquire a new hotel in Makarska.

Zrinka Bokulic, President of the Management Board, neither confirms nor denies this information. She says the campaign reflects several main things, from expanding the business (in terms of existing capacities) and potential new acquisitions to raising service quality standards, most notably in Orebic and Korcula, which have only recently come under the company's auspices. The new level of service standards, in addition to education, includes a larger number of employees.

After this year's pre-season, a good summer season seemed unlikely, so part of the accommodation capacities opened a little later, and Valamar has already turned to preparations for 2022. Fifteen days ago, they announced that they intend to hire about 400 key seasonal workers indefinitely this autumn, and will provide them with a stable income and year-round work in tourism.

While the leading companies on the Croatian tourism scene are doing everything to ensure the highest quality service for next year, the problem of lack of skilled labour is one of the reasons for the decline in business expectations in the October survey conducted by the Croatian Nationl Bank.

Across all industries, the index of trust and optimism of business entities last month was below the average from the previous three months. In terms of construction and industry, the problem of the labour shortage is most often emphasised, while in the Croatian National Bank's survey, respondents from service industries are primarily afraid of a lack of demand.

If the domestic labour market as a whole is observed, at the end of September this year, 1.6 million insured persons were registered with the Croatian Pension Fund. This is a slight decrease compared to the month before, but at the annual level of 51 thousand or 3.3 percent more, and it also exceeded the number of insured persons recorded back in pre-pandemic September 2019, by more than 14.7 thousand or slightly less than one percent .

While the manufacturing industry and trade as the activities with the largest number of employees recorded an increase compared to last year, but not up to pre-crisis figures, the construction and IT sector (Information and Communication category) has already exceeded them. Croatian IT companies are also exposed to more pronounced pressures on wage growth and according to the latest available data from the CBS, they are the ones leading the growth of average salaries.

Despite the general trend of wage growth, demand for workers and a larger number of employees when compared to pre-pandemic figures, Croatian National Bank surveys of citizens in October showed a decline in consumer optimism. The acceleration of inflation and the epidemiological situation obviously raise concerns about further developments in the labour market.

For more on Croatian employment, make sure to check out our dedicated business section.

November the 9th, 2021 - Croatian oil and gas exploration isn't of particular interest to Petrol from neighbouring Slovenia following the postponement of the conclusion of an exploration contract.

As Poslovni Dnevnik/Marija Brnic writes, before the Slovenian Petrol completed their acquisition of Crodux Derivati Dva (2), the company informed the Croatian Ministry of Economy and Sustainable Development this summer that it was giving up on its exploration mission on two onshore fields, namely S11 and S12, for which it received a concession back in the August of 2019.

According to the official explanation as to why Croatian oil and gas exploration was being put back on the shelf, Crodux first asked for a postponement of the conclusion of the exploration contract and the division of hydrocarbon exploitation, and then reported that they were giving up on the exploration entirely. The exploration period for the above-mentioned fields was set to last five years, and in the event that gas or oil did end up being found, a 25-year period of its subsequent exploitation would have followed.

The Croatian Government's explicit permission for this was a precondition for opening a contract negotiation procedure, followed by the signing of the said contract, but Crodux first cited various difficulties due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, and asked for a postponement of the conclusion of the contract, before giving up on it entirely.

The aforementioned ministry received the notification back on June the 7th, and Ivan Cermak withdrew from the position of President of the Management Board of Crodux, which was in the process of taking over from Petrol slightly earlier on, more precisely on June the 1st, meaning that it can be concluded that the new owner of Crodux has no interest in continuing Croatian oil and gas exploration, at least at the moment.

After the withdrawal, a bank guarantee was activated, which pumped a massive 3.75 million kuna into the Croatian state budget.

For more, make sure to check out our dedicated business section.

November the 9th, 2021 - Rijeka Port signed a very significant contract recently, and it seems that this Northern Adriatic port could become the largest and indeed one of the most important in this part of Europe in a relatively short period of time.

As Poslovni Dnevnik/Suzana Varosanec writes, by signing a 50-year concession agreement for the Rijeka Gateway, APM Terminals and ENNA have formally entered the project of designing, building and operating a new container terminal in Rijeka Port, ENNA said, stating that it is a joint investment of two companies on the Croatian side of the Northern Adriatic.

The estimated value of the concession on the 400-metre coastline stands at about 20.5 billion kuna, and the concessionaire's obligation in the first two years is to realise a container turnover of two million TEU units (equivalent to a twenty-foot container).

Two million kuna is a permanent part of the concession fee, a variable part of 4 or 6 percent of the gross annual revenue of the terminal, and the concessionaire will need to procure and install equipment at the terminal, and in the second phase build an extension of another 280 metres of coastal wall.

The third phase is optional, ie if all of the necessary conditions are met, another 320 metres of coastal wall will be built. The new terminal will be equipped with three ship-shore cranes, and at the end of the second phase with a total of four cranes, currently the largest available on the market, and the Rijeka Gateway will therefore be able to accommodate vessels up to 24,000 TEU.

The total investment is estimated at around 250 million euros, or in the first phase at around 100 million euros. The concessionaire is their joint company: Rijeka Gateway d.o.o. based in Vukovar. It was established by a partnership agreement with 51 and 49 percent membership shares by members of the consortium APM Terminals and ENNA Logic, a component of the wider ENNA Group, which is one of the fastest growing Croatian companies at this moment in time.

The offer of this consortium was selected back in June at an international public tender, while the conclusion of the concession agreement starts the realisation of the project, which means the long-awaited upcoming, rapid development of the Rijeka traffic route.

This means the expansion of intermodal transport, new direct employment - in the first phase about 400 jobs with more to come, concluding with the goal of positioning Rijeka Port on the logistics map.

According to the director of Rijeka Port, Denis Vukorepa, the co-signatory of the contract by the concession grantor, on January the 1st, 2024 the terminal will be operational, and after the completion of the second phase of the ''Zagreb coast'' project, including the activities of Jadranska vrata, Rijeka Port will be the largest container port in the Northern Adriatic with about 1.5 million TEU units (500,000 TEU refers to the Adriatic Gate).

The total turnover of Rijeka Port in 2021 will be, he says, at about 360,000 TEU, or about 5 percent when compared to 2020.

For APM terminals, the world container shipping company A.P. Moller - Maersk, which operates about 80 terminals in the world, the development of a new terminal in Rijeka is in line with their strategy "Safer, better, bigger". According to Morten Engelstoft, CEO of APM Terminals, the investor recognised the growing need for efficient, well-managed and modern terminals that serve as entry points to local and regional markets, bringing container goods closer to end consumers.

Therefore, they're convinced that the Rijeka Gateway, with a good location in Rijeka and a strong connection with the hinterland, will become an important point on the map of port logistics in Croatia, but also in the wider Central European region.

The same belief is shared by Pavao Vujnovac, President of the Management Board of ENNA Group, who believes that this joint investment project in the Zagreb coast (the Rijeka Gateway) will become the basis for growth and sustainability of port operations and logistics sector for Rijeka and the Republic of Croatia as a whole.

According to Vujnovac, the Rijeka Gateway and modernisation of railway infrastructure is the largest Croatian national project that will connect Rijeka Port with continental Croatia and other Central European countries, facilitating business opportunities and rapid economic growth not only in logistics but in all services and industries.

According to PM Andrej Plenkovic, this concession agreement creates the preconditions for Rijeka to take a leading role in cargo transhipment in the Northern Adriatic and become the most important sea exit for Central and Southeast Europe.

For more, make sure to check out our dedicated business section.

November the 9th, 2021 - The Polish Internet giant, Allegro, has purchased Mall Group (of which the popular Croatian Mall.hr is a part) in a new acquisition which is likely to boost the Group's reach even further.

As Poslovni Dnevnik/Darko Bicak writes, the Polish Allegro, one of the largest e-commerce platforms in all of Europe, is taking ownership of the Croatian Mall.hr, an online retailer which operates within the aforementioned Mall Group.

As announced by this Croatian company, Allegro bought 100 percent of the Mall Group and WE | DO CZ on Friday from the previous owners, PPF, EC Investments and Rockaway Capital, for a total price of 881 million euros.

The final price could be increased by a correction of up to 50 million euros, which is far from spare change. The purchased business includes Mall Group's e-commerce assets and WEDO logistics assets located in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Slovenia, here in Croatia and in Poland.

At the end of the financial year on March the 21st, Mall Group achieved a gross sales value of 930 million euros and a gross margin of 14 percent. The Croatian part of this group, Mall.hr, pointed out that they are among the three best web stores currently operating on the Croatian market.

“We started working back in 2016, and we're currently in the phase of transition to the omnichannel model, since we're opening the first Mall.hr Mega shop within the King Cross Jankomir shopping centre in Zagreb. Last year, compared to 2019, we recorded significant growth of 40 percent, which could be expected given the market situation, and this growing trend has continued in 2021,'' they say from the Croatian Mall.hr.

When asked how they see the relationship between "domestic" and global online stores here on the Croatian market, they point out that they believe that "domestic" web stores in Croatia have an advantage, since this fact alone brings a dose of customer confidence in safe but affordable shopping and also allows for easier communication and better connectivity between the web store and customers.

“This acquisition will drive our growth further and help us take our business to the next level. Together, we'll also achieve greater market competitiveness as the expertise brought by Allegro in the form of their web marketplace will develop across all Mall Group brands and markets. We're the perfect combination because both companies are focused on growth, innovation and teamwork, but also in terms of business - our 1P model complements Allegro's 3P model and vice versa. In this scenario, everyone wins,'' they said from Mall.hr.

The acquisition, after the approval of the regulator, should be realised by the end of 2022.

For more, check out our dedicated business section.