July the 17th, 2022 - All hands are firmly on deck with employees having to work hard in three shifts to make sure the new Croatian euro coins are going to be ready by the end of this year for the official introduction on the first day of 2023.
As Poslovni Dnevnik writes, the governor of the Croatian National Bank (CNB), Boris Vujcic, recently said that the current crisis we're in due to rising inflation and the ongoing war in Ukraine best illustrates the advantage of the Republic of Croatia finally joining the Eurozone.
"The markets already know this, they know exactly what the exchange rate will be here in Croatia, and because of that, we didn't even see any pressure on the weakening of the kuna, nor did we have to intervene or raise our interest rates. Other European Union (EU) member states that are not part of the Eurozone, such as Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic and others, have already experienced pressure on their own respective currencies and interest rates, which are rising very strongly, which spills over into the home loan and business loan market, while in Croatia, they're thankfully still at a historic low,'' explained Vujcic
''If we weren't set to officially join the Eurozone, the situation would be different in this country,'' he noted.
The governor also announced that the minting of Croatian euro coins will start on Monday. The process, as he said, is logistically demanding, because Croatian euro coins all need to be minted by the end of this year, and it will have to be done in three shifts.
"We're on the verge of minting all of the Croatian euro coins," he said, adding that the second major demand will be the withdrawal of the current kuna banknotes from use.
''As for the conversion from the Croatian national currency to euros, it will be automatic from January the 1st, 2023, and all loans that aren't in euros will remain at the exchange rate that had already been established. Those who have loans with a fixed interest rate will see everything remain the same as it was when the kuna was being used, and those who have a variable rate will see it adjusted in such a way that the consumer doesn't end up in a worse position after the conversion than they were before it,'' he explained.
''Consumers are going to remain in the same situations as they were before,'' assured Boris Vujcic.
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