As Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 31st of December, 2018, Finance Minister Zdravko Marić presented the Croatian Government's new ''demographic measure'' on Sunday for Dnevnik HTV, by which the non-taxable amount of so-called ''newborn allowance'' has been raised to a very handsome 10,000 kuna.
"An employee who has a baby'' said Marić, "her employer has the ability and the right to give her money for the newborn baby. The non-taxable amount is 3,362 kuna, but this amount has been raised three times higher and amounts to 10,000 kuna,'' announced the finance minister during an interview with HTV.
The order by the Croatian Government which regards this measure will be published on Wednesday, January the 2nd, 2019, and will come into force as of Thursday, January the 3rd, but it is already technically applicable today, added the minister.
Looking back, this has been the year in which Marić, who has been serving in the Croatian Government for a while now, stated that he was satisfied with continuing the trend of Croatia's declining public debt, which fell by 10 percentage points in just three years. It is expected that this year, interest rates will fall below 9 billion kuna.
"Since 2015, we've cut interest rates by more than a quarter, we're paying lower interest rates, and I'm particularly pleased with what we've done for the highways and for the roads," said Minister Marić, emphasising that they continue to remain in "Croatian hands".
Recalling the alarming debts which still very much haunt Croatia's healthcare system, he said that redistributing money to the Ministry of Health can't be a viable solution to that problem.
"I'm happy that we've been able to reduce payment deadlines, especially the state ones, for a year. I'd like to see if these reduced payment periods reflected on the reduced cost of purchasing medication," Marić said.
He emphasised the need for the Croatian Government to apply a combination of measures on the revenue and expenditure side of the health budget.
"We have contributed through the third round of tax breaks, we've raised the budget for healthcare by 1 percentage point, around 1.350 billion kuna, but that won't be enough," he said, concluding that the Croatian healthcare system must be financially sustainable.
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