Business

ZAGREB, May 4, 2020 - The first wave of relaxing epidemiological restrictions since April 27 has led to an increased turnover in the retail and hospitality sectors compared to the week before, but annual figures are significantly lower, according to data from the Tax Administration. Comparing the week from April 27 to May 3 with the week from April 20 to 26, the number of fiscal receipts in all activities increased by 3% while their overall amount increased by 6%. A total of 22.1 million receipts were issued in all activities from April 27 to May 3, with a total…

ZAGREB, May 4, 2020 - The number of industrial workers in Croatia in March remained unchanged from February, while compared with March last year it fell by 2.7%, according to data from the National Bureau of Statistics (DZS). Month on month, the largest drop in the number of workers was recorded in tobacco production (-7.4%), while the textile industry registered the largest increase (+9.8%). The year-on-year figures show that a majority of sectors recorded declines in employment, the sharpest fall being recorded in the manufacture of other means of transport and shipbuilding (-19.5%). The largest increases were observed in the…

As Darko Bicak/Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 3rd of May, 2020, given the fact that the COVID-19 crisis has shaken the global, and consequently Croatian society, and the economic damage that the pandemic will cause when everything is ''totalled up'' is still unknown, public calls are being made in Croatia for the abolition of a series of state, public and local institutions and fiscal and especially para-fiscal levies. Many Croatian companies are seeing an opportunity in the midst of the crisis. While certain people think that now is the time to change the territorial structure of the country with one…

ZAGREB, May 3, 2020 - The associations -- a Croatian association of agricultural producers, a national association of cafe and restaurant owners and the Voice of Entrepreneurs -- said in their joint press release that ban on Sunday trading would reduce revenues of retailers, small farmers and cafe owners. The press release issued on Sunday recalls that those businesses have already been hit hard by the corona crisis, and ban on Sunday trading would be additional shock. They ask for regulation of the work on Sunday rather than ban. Tihomir Jaić of the Croatian association of agricultural producers said that…

May 2, 2020 — Dubrovnik will try to salvage what promises to be a brutal summer tourist season by seeking special status to bypass some travel restrictions while the city’s Tourist Board launches a promotional campaign luring guests back to the Pearl of the Adriatic. Mayor Mato Franković predicted 2020 may be Dubrovnik’s most uncertain summer season since the 1990s war. He predicted a complete economic collapse if flights remain grounded throughout the summer, with 80 percent of the economy evaporating by spring 2021. The mayor and city’s Economic Council asked the Croatian government to grant Dubrovnik special status to…

ZAGREB, May 2, 2020 - In the first week since the gradual lifting of the strict lockdown measures, the consumption has risen 22%, the Večernji List daily reported on Saturday. For the sake of comparison, the consumption in that week was lower by 16% as against the corresponding period in 2019, the newspaper said. Nevertheless, this rise of consumption by a fifth since the lifting of some of the containment measures is whiff of optimism after the government's projections of the economic downturn by 9.4%in 2020, the daily commented. Due to the lockdown measures to curb the coronavirus epidemic, the…

In a sea of negative news headlines and depressing economic forecasts, some good news arrives from the Kraljevica shipyard - it is currently full of Jadrolinija vessels. The Croatian shipbuilding industry didn't need any other knockbacks. Long before the coronavirus pandemic began, the industry had been in dire straits, needing guarantee after guarantee from the government. This ailing industry saw the strike of its unpaid and overworked staff, and the enfeebled shipyards Uljanik (Pula) and 3 Maj (Rijeka) shipyards were only ever in the press for the wrong reasons. The coronavirus pandemic was the absolute last thing this industry needed,…

ZAGREB, May 1, 2020 - Croatia has made progress on the global scale of state budget transparency, and according to the survey for 2019, it ranked 21st place among 117 countries, the Institute for Public Finance (IJF) said on Thursday, pointing out that there was still a lot of room for improvement. As the IJF announced in an analysis by Mihaela Bronić and Josip Franić, the International Budget Partnership (IBP), a non-profit organisation from Washington D.C., published on Wednesday the Budget Transparency Score for 2019, and Croatia scored 68 out of the possible 100 points, according to the Open Budget…

ZAGREB, May 1, 2020 - The three biggest trade unions in the INA oil group have asked Prime Minister Andrej Plenković to get INA owners - the government and the Hungarian oil company MOL - to give up the payment of the dividend for 2019. The also urged the government to consider the possibility of including INA and its companies in a set of measures aimed at preserving jobs. "The financial reports clearly show the gravity of the consequences of the economic crisis and its effects on the INA Group, jeopardising more than 9,000 jobs," one of the unions said…

ZAGREB, April 30, 2020 - The government forecasts that this year Gross Domestic Product (GDP) will fall by 9.4% while in 2021, recovery is expected at a rate of 6.1%. The government session on Thursday discussed the 2020 National Reform Programme and the Croatia's Convergence Programme for 2020 and 2021. The convergence programme projects the contraction of the national economy by 9.4% in 2020 while in 2021 the government expects a recovery and growth rate of 6.1%. Opening the cabinet meeting on Thursday, Prime Minister Andrej Plenković said that with reference to economic policies the National Reform Programme rests on…