February the 27th, 2021 - Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic has worked to clear up doubts surrounding the continued job preservation/economic aid which has been being paid out to Croatian companies and which is due to expire on Monday.
As Poslovni Dnevnik writes, the Croatian Prime Minister reported that the European Council had discussed the need to speed up the delivery of coronavirus vaccines. He recalled the fact that Croatia had ordered 6.8 million doses of vaccine, more than is needed for all of its adult residents.
"It's currently estimated that about 8 percent of adult citizens have been vaccinated at the European Union level so far, and the goal is to reach 70 percent by the summer months. The EC will continue talks with leaders within the pharmaceutical industry. Croatia will therefore be in a position to vaccinate a larger amount of its population. We expect 730,000 doses of vaccine to arrive by the end of March,'' Plenkovic said.
The Croatian Prime Minister also commented on the announced easing of epidemiological measures and on the talks on the continuation of aid for enterprises.
"We've made a political decision to continue to monitor the economy, regardless of the possible scope of that work," said Plenkovic, announcing the continuation of support for the economic activities that cannot work as they did before the coronavirus pandemic struck would continue to receive their financial support from the state. He stated that they consider it the right decision and that the necessary funds will be found in the positions of the ministries, and that no rebalance will be needed.
"I'd also like to address the issue of bookmakers and casinos. All of them pay concessions, in case they don't work, there is no such income and the state still pays them. When we analysed this we saw that their business isn't epidemiologically problematic, such is the attitude of our epidemiologists. The meaning behind that decision is so that the state can benefit. None of us are personally prone to gambling,'' he said.
He also commented on the record decline in Croatia's GDP.
"Croatia, like other tourist countries, found itself in a situation where the coronavirus crisis hit it extremely hard. This 8.4 percent drop is better than the other estimates which were given for Croatia. Thanks to government measures, today, when the sums are underlined, we see that there are only 2.1 percent fewer employees in 2020 than there were back in 2019, while salaries have increased by 2.7 percent. That's very important,'' the Croatian Prime Minister pointed out, once again stating that Croatian employers have been paid 9.3 billion kuna so far to overcome the crisis.
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