Business

ZAGREB, March 25, 2019 - Finns and Croats are the most surrounded by diversity in workplace, and Croats most often work with the elderly and mothers of small children, a little less with foreigners and minority and ethnic groups, and the least with disabled persons and LGBT persons, the MojPosao job-seeking website says. Four in ten employees in Europe do not experience diversity in the workplace, according to an international study on diversity conducted by Paylab in nine European countries in 2018. The goal of the study was to determine the extent to which employees in work teams come into…

ZAGREB, March 24, 2019 - More than 60% of Croatian businesses prefer cash payments, yet 77% expect mobile payments to prevail over the next ten years, according to a survey conducted by the British company LM Research for the Norwegian company Auka. The findings were presented at the residence of the Norwegian Ambassador to Croatia, Astrid Versto. LM Research interviewed 28,000 small and large businesses as well as restaurant and hotel companies throughout the European Union. Restaurants and cafes in Croatia show the biggest interest in the introduction of mobile payments, while small shop owners and newsagents resist it the…

March 24, 2019 - After 30 million euro of deals over 300 meetings in 25 cities, Zagreb-based networking club Business Cafe is set for its first international edition. Although I am a man of many words through my blogging and over a beer, I am quite a shy and not very accomplished public speaker.  This could be due to some of the situations I have had to deal with in my 'career' so far - lecturing the professors on Hiroshima on the Middle East peace process (with the Professor of Middle Eastern studies in the front row), addressing the Rwandese…

ZAGREB, March 24, 2019 - Standard & Poor's raised its sovereign credit rating on Croatia to 'BBB-/A-3' from 'BB+/B', putting the country's rating after six years back into the investment category owing to an improved situation in the budget and economic recovery. The BB+/B rating describes a country's debt securities as speculative investment, while BBB-/A-3 is an investment category. In December 2012, S&P downgraded Croatia's rating to a non-investment category. The outlook now is stable. "The upgrade reflects Croatia's improving fiscal metrics, underpinned by its recent economic recovery thanks to tax-rich domestic demand, but also fiscal consolidation measures implemented by…

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 23rd of March, 2019, Business Matchmaker, organised by the eSTUDENT student association and the Office for consulting and career development at Zagreb's Faculty of Economics, will be held on the 26th of March this year at Zagreb's Faculty of Economics (Trg JF Kennedy 6), beginning at 9:00. The completion of the official part is expected to be at 15:00. This innovative project allows students to personally present themselves in a short four minute selection interview to a group of desired companies. Interviews will be held in the halls of the faculty, and the continuation…

March 22, 2019 - Croatia's increasingly influential entrepreneurial class will come together for the 5th time next week to celebrate the EY Entrepreneur of the Year. Just over a year ago, I had a phone call from the new Varteks CEO Nenad Bakic. He was coming to Varazdin for meetings and wanted to catch up over a coffee. We talked about various issues related to TCN, Varteks and doing business in Croatia, and then he said: "I want to show you a different side of Croatia. Hold on." And he spoke rapidly into his phone and arranged a seat for…

ZAGREB, March 22, 2019 - The situation at the ailing Uljanik shipbuilding group from Pula, whose workers on Thursday went on strike again, was calm on Friday, and the striking committee decided to send letters to the prime minister, the president and the parliament speaker and to the owners of a dredger and a polar discovery cruise ship that are being built at Uljanik, in yet another attempt to make the government finally make a decision on the shipyard's future. "We have asked the prime minister to urgently hold a government conference call to make a decision on Uljanik. We…

The City of Dubrovnik wants 30 million kuna and 30 percent of future revenue for the use of the popular Srđ cable car without a concession contract. As Marija Crnjak/Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 21st of March, 2019, the several year long ''argument'' over the concession of the Srđ cable car has escalated to the extent it has because the City of Dubrovnik filed a lawsuit against Excelsa nekretnine (real estate) owned by the Lukšić family, accusing them of the unlawful acquisition of money. The amount that City of Dubrovnik is seeking for the use of the popular cable car…

ZAGREB, March 21, 2019 - Members of parliament from both the parliamentary majority and the opposition on Friday supported, in a joint debate on the Companies Bill and the Court Register Bill, the proposed amendments that aim to facilitate the establishment of companies. Justice Minister Dražen Bošnjaković said that the purpose of the amendments was to make the establishment and registration of companies, limited liability companies and simple limited liability companies faster and cut costs related to their establishment. Among other things the bills propose on-line registration of limited liability and simple limited liability companies and introduce electronic communication with…

ZAGREB, March 21, 2019 - Workers at the Uljanik shipyard in the northern coastal town of Pula once again went on strike on Thursday, welding the gates at two of three entrances to the dock in an effort to compel the government to urgently decide on the future of the shipyard and its workers. "We are on strike again as of today as we did not get any positive information from the government or Uljanik's management," the chairman of the strike committee, Boris Cerovac, said. He reiterated that workers demand that the government adopt the restructuring plan or obtain a…