Business

As Barbara Ban/Novac writes on the 17th of February, 2020, the public tender for the selection of the construction works company to be held in Mali Brijun is underway until February the 21st, 2020, and it concerns the renovation of seven ground-floor structures. These are currently abandoned buildings that will be renovated for education and research as part of the EU's New Brijuni Project. According to the Brijuni National Park public institution, in the bay of Sv. Mikula, where the former military dormitories used to be, there will be a new complex, the purpose of which will be primarily educational…

Why should the smoke just disappear into the wind when it can be turned into electricity? HEP has big plans for the unassuming Savica heating plant chimney next to the Sava river in Zagreb. As Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 17th of February, 2020, in this way, HEP wants to harness the thermal energy of waste flue gas from the Savica heating plant chimney, which is currently being released through the chimneys into the environment, and would also show the possibility of the alternative use of existing chimneys. "One of those options is a process where a chimney is used…

February 15, 2020 - Violeta, a Bosnian brand of toilet paper and similar products, announced that they'll offer to their Croatian consumers the same product they already know in very innovative packaging. In Croatia, and you're absolutely forgiven if you don't know this unimportant factoid, most of the TP used is imported. I thought that nobody produced it, as when there was a lot of joking around at the Narodne Novine expense (the Official Gazette of Croatia company who tried and failed miserably at producing and distributing it, losing almost 10 million taxpayers' euros in the process) it was said…

As Novac/Dora Koretic writes on the 14th of February, 2020, although the deadline for completing the landscaping works in front of the future Rijeka Hilton was extended yesterday until August the 31st, 2020, for JTH Costabella at a government session, Costabella said the hotel would definitely still be ready to receive its first guests this summer and that the extension would not delay the opening this valuable investment. Specifically, as evidenced by a document discussed yesterday at the government level, JTH Costabella's landscaping work, for which a concession was granted back in November 2015, was due to be completed by…

An agreement on a very large and rather surprising investment in Croatia signed today in the continental Croatian town of Petrinja between the town and an Indian entrepreneur called Arvind Kapur. As Novac writes on the 14th of February, 2020, the Indian entrepreneur, who is the owner of a pizzeria chain and the director of Capitel Group, an investment and technology company, has expressed his interest in investing around 50 million euros in growing hazelnut, walnut and chestnut plantations in Petrinja. He contacted the Croatian Chamber of Agriculture (HPK), and President Mladen Jakopovic connected him to Petrinja's Mayor. The Indian…

ZAGREB, February 14, 2020 - A new Croatian Telecom (HT) call centre opened on Friday in Osijek, with the company investing around 2.5 million kuna in the centre, and employing 100 people. The new call centre, provided with state-of-the-art IT equipment, offers services exclusively to private users of HT fixed-line and mobile phone networks. Ivan Bartulović, a member of the Croatian Telecom HR management, said that the company employed around 500 people in Osijek, with 400 of them working in call centres. Last year alone, 116 new employees were hired, and around 100 of them in the new call centre,…

Despite the issues that still linger between Croatia and neighbouring Slovenia owing to the Croatian-Slovenian border dispute, cooperation in transport services with a coming together of Croatian and Slovenian railways. As Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 13th of February, 2020, HZ PP and SZ Passenger Transport are collaborating on a European Union (EU) project to improve their services and expand their supply of international rail lines, worth 2.8 million euros. HZ Passenger Transport and Slovenian Railways' SZ Passenger Transport signed an agreement on improving services on international trains between Croatia and Slovenia on Wednesday in Zagreb. The aim is to…

ZAGREB, February 13, 2020 - The Pevec household hardware chain has changed its name to Pevex, the chairman of the chain's management board Jurica Lovrinčević told a press conference on Thursday. The decision was made in order to distance the chain from the name of the previous owners, Lovrinčević explained. The founders and former owners, Zdravko and Višnja Pevec, were sentenced in 2015 for abuse of powers and financial wrongdoing. Lovrinčević added that over the past four years the chain had undergone a huge business transformation and now had 2,000 employees compared to the previous 1,100 in more than 10…

ZAGREB, February 13, 2020 - The European Commission on Thursday stated that Croatia's real GDP growth "is estimated to have risen to 3.0% in 2019", as against the previous forecasts of 2.9%, assessing that in 2020, the economy will grow at a rate of 2.6% and in 2021 at 2.3%. "After a weak 2018, real GDP growth in Croatia is estimated to have risen to 3.0% in 2019," the EC says in its latest Winter 2020 Economic Forecast. "Domestic demand strengthened, driven by a noticeable pick-up in investment and government consumption expenditure, while continued improvements in the labour market and…

ZAGREB, February 13, 2020 - The available monthly indicators suggest that Croatia's real GDP growth slowed in the fourth quarter of 2019, while the labour market continued to see favourable trends, including increased employment and wages and a fall in unemployment, the Croatian National Bank (HNB) Council said a statement on Wednesday. The HNB Council met to discuss the latest monetary and economic trends and analyse the financial stability of the banking system in the last quarter of 2019. Inflation picked up from 0.7% in November to 1.4% in December, mostly due to food prices, notably a strong increase in…