The answer to the pressing question of whether or not men still have an advantage in their professional lives in Croatia is mixed. In light of the quickly approaching Women's Day, the second "Women in the Business World" survey organised by HUP (Croatian Employers' Association) and Deloitte attempted to shed some light on the situation.

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 7th of March, 2019, research was conducted by HUP and Deloitte from October to December 2018 and showcases the attitudes and thinking of 186 women and men, all of whom are working as managers in leading positions of companies and financial institutions which place special emphasis on the development of female entrepreneurship.

The number of women in management positions in companies in Croatia which are listed on the Zagreb Stock Exchange is growing steadily, but it is still less than nineteen percent. The findings of joint research by Deloitte and HUP have confirmed this. Namely, women continue to face certain barriers when it comes to building their careers. Flexible working conditions and quality infrastructure support, encouraging balance between private and business life in companies are key measures to removing these burdensome barriers, according to sixty percent of respondents.

Unfortunately, research has confirmed that women in Croatia are still finding it difficult to make further progress.

Although in the opinion 58 percent of respondents, women and men have equal financial results (sales, profits), yet as many as 77 percent believe that men are quicker in realising professional advancement.

"It's a great pleasure for me that HUP has recognised issues related to women in business, and in Deloitte we've found an excellent partner. It's important that we launched our Base of Women and we're proud of 100 successful female leaders who are our ambassadors and are ready to take management positions at any time in companies. The women's issue is not a topic to be solved only with Women's Day but also throughout the year because the companies that promote gender equality are proven to be more successful and more competitive on the market,'' said Gordana Deranja, president of the Croatian Employers' Association.

New research has been carried out in more detail than research from back in 2013.

This year's survey is even more detailed than the last one, which was carried out in 2013, with one difference: the 2013 research encompassed the views of colleagues and colleagues from neighbouring Bosnia and Herzegovina and Slovenia, while new research deals only with Croatian opportunities. The SheXO research highlights the attitudes, beliefs and thinking of women and men in the management structures of small businesses as well as in large companies.

Is discrimination already occurring during the job interview?

Almost 60 percent of the survey respondents, upon being asked the question of the current issues of the Croatian business environment, said that women in executive positions are often paid less than men in the same positions are.

Namely, as many as 57 percent of those who partook in the research claim that women are often exposed to more personal issues such as those involved in family planning.

"Investigations show that companies, where men and women are equally represented in management, recorded a 35 percent higher return on equity, and also six percent higher net profit margins. Companies with gender-balanced management are twice as resistant on the market, and time has also shown that such companies have been more likely to overcome the global crisis that hit in 2008,'' as was told by Helena Schmidt.

Make sure to stay up to date by following our dedicated business and lifestyle pages.

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 7th of March, 2019, well known Split entrepreneur Jozo Parčina, perhaps best known to the wider public as the owner of the beautiful Luxe Hotel in Split, could soon become the owner of the "Kaštela Riviera".

Not even three full years after the launching of bankruptcy proceedings over the defunct Kaštela company, they acquired the conditions for the sale of their property, which is largely under a mortgage, among which the most prized is the hotel "Palace".

The interest in buying was confirmed to Slobodna Dalmacija by Parčina himself, who in the meantime redeemed the receivables of the Austrian HETA agency, a successor to Hypo Bank.

''I have redeemed the HETA receivables because I want to buy a complex in Kaštela, invest 40 million euros in its renovation and upgrading, put the hotel in order and employ 150 people,'' said Parčina when discussing the plans, adding that it would be a four or five-star hotel, and would boast up to 350 rooms.

The renovation refers to the only remaining building, the old "Palace" building with 230 rooms, protected as a cultural monument, and another new building. Since the surface areas of the complex in Kaštel Stari, located on the shore, is about 38,000 square metres in size, a building larger than the existing one will be permitted.

''I'm already in the hotel business. With "Luxe", which has been in operation for ten years, another hotel in Split is being prepared, where works are going to be finished soon, so I'd like to expand this activity by buying a complex in Kaštela,'' added Parčina, who in the meantime has invested in some real estate which he now rents out.

In earlier years, Jozo Parčina was known to the general public as the owner of a company which dealt with various gambling machines located across Dalmatia and Istria, this business was eventually shut down by tax collectors and by the Croatian Government in 2016.

If he succeeds in purchasing the "Kaštela Riviera" property, Parčina estimated that from the moment of everything being ready for work, it would take up to three years for the investment to be realised. Assets will be sold in bankruptcy proceedings through the Financial Agency (FINA) so it's clear that the real estate will go to whoever is willing to pay the most.

Make sure to stay up to date by following our dedicated business page.

Last month, CEPOR held a round table conference in Zagreb, and invited different migrant business owners in Croatia to speak. The purpose of the roundtable was to understand the current status and potential of migrant entrepreneurship and migrant businesses in Croatia. We interviewed two CEPOR members, Ružica Šimić Banović and Mirela Alpeza to learn more.

Last month, CEPOR (Centre for Small and Medium Enterprises Development and Entrepreneurship) hosted a roundtable conference in Zagreb to learn more about the current migrant business climate; the barriers and changes needed to promote positive growth. The invited speakers were: Hermes Arriaga Sierra – co-founder of the Impact Hub in Zagreb, Prince Wale Soniyiki – owner of the African Restaurant & Bar in Zagreb, Sara Kekuš, Program Leader of Asylum, Integration and Human Security at the Centre for Peace Studies, Jan Brzozowski – Professor at the Faculty of Economics in Krakow, and Mirela Rus – co-owner of Breaktime Nautical Jewelry.

Left to Right: Prince Wale Soniyiki, Hermes Arriaga Sierra and Mirela Rus.

The discussion focused around the barriers and areas for improvement that these migrant business owners and entrepreneurs have faced in Croatia. We reached out to the organisers of the roundtable to learn more about their intentions and conclusions from the discussion.

Can you tell us a little about CEPOR, your work and objectives?

Mirela Alpeza: CEPOR – SMEs & Entrepreneurship Policy Centre is the first think tank in Croatia which deals with the problems of the SME sector. CEPOR is a non-profit organisation founded in 2001 based on the Agreement between the Republic of Croatia and the Open Society Institute Croatia. The founders of CEPOR are 10 institution leaders in their fields of work – from the academic community to business associations, development agencies and entrepreneurial centres.

The mission of CEPOR is to contribute to the shaping of entrepreneurial culture and stimulating institutional and regulatory framework for entrepreneurial activity in Croatia. Areas of work cover policy research, policy development and advocacy related to entrepreneurship and SME sector.

What was the main purpose of the roundtable for migrant business owners?

Ružica Šimić Banović: The aim of the Roundtable was to enhance the understanding of the specifics and potential of migrant entrepreneurship in Croatia. Namely, despite its current emigration wave and a growing need of workforce and entrepreneurial incentives in Croatia, only 40% of Croatian citizens believe that immigrants have an overall positive impact on the national economy and only 11% consider the immigration to be an opportunity for the society as a whole. This data refers to the perception of non-EU immigrants and is taken from the latest Eurobarometer survey. Moreover, when talking about immigration-related issues, Croatian citizens are the least informed in the EU – 81% of them consider themselves insufficiently informed on the immigration and integration related matters.

Our Roundtable raised much more interest than initially expected, in particular among media, scientists and in the business community. Our next step is a policy brief and further research aimed at advocacy.

Do you have solid statistics for the number of migrant business owners operating in Croatia?

Ružica Šimić Banović: Unfortunately, we still have major issues connected with a lack of reliable data on migrant entrepreneurship in Croatia. This matter has already been raised by colleagues from the Centre for Policy Studies who started their migrant entrepreneurship projects a few years ago.

Still, we have examples of decade-long' success of foreign entrepreneurs in Croatia, like the owners of Chinese restaurants, several clinics owned and run by doctors from all over the World, IT companies owned and co-owned by foreigners, music festivals brought to Croatia by foreign entrepreneurs etc. Croatian brands like Yasenka and Image Haddad are not to be missed on this list! And Slavoljub Penkala as a historic example as well.

Will this information be presented to the government, what is the follow-up from here?

Ružica Šimić Banović: Now we are writing a policy brief that will be distributed among all the relevant stakeholders. It is based on the available data and on very resourceful interviews with foreign entrepreneurs in Croatia. So far, there have been some incentives tackling the migrant entrepreneurship in Croatia, but the daily practice shows that their implementation is quite fragmented and consequently, the outcomes are somewhat questionable. The latest business executives survey done by The World Economic Forum for The Global Competitiveness Report places Croatia among the most unsuccessful countries in the World according to several immigration and business climate-related indicators. These include Ease of hiring foreign labour (139^th out of 140), Hiring and firing practices (135^th out of 140), Attitudes toward entrepreneurial risk (137^th out of 140) and Burden of government regulation (138^th out of 140). There are also indicators that place us among the top 20 countries in the World, these mostly tackle infrastructure, trade openness and low terrorism risk.

Regarding the incentives for returning heritage Croatians, there have been several targeting mostly potential investors and scientists. To my knowledge, there is no systemic approach to that issue. However, there is a huge potential in return and circular migrants, but pull factors need to be improved in the meantime.

Mirela Alpeza: We will also use the aforementioned policy brief in the advocacy activities. We strive for a more favourable business environment that should be supportive of the development of migrant entrepreneurship as well. We also hope that this issue will be recognised at a policy level and we expect appropriate measures to be undertaken. This would bring Croatia closer to countries representing good practices in this field.

Experiences and opinions from migrant business owners in Croatia

Mirela Rus and her husband Ionut Copoiu have just opened their fifth Nautical Jewelry store in Zagreb; Mirela shares some of her experience and thoughts on the matter of migrant business opportunities and policies.

 “Our story was quite easy in comparison, we didn’t face too many barriers or obstacles but we are aware that for citizens outside of the EU, it is quite difficult. Our conclusion at the end was that if they want to stay ahead of the declining population numbers, and support economic growth and general development of the country, then the government needs to start paying attention to migrants and adopt measures to actually encourage people to move to Croatia and open businesses.

The current state of play is discouraging for countries outside the EU to move, spend money and develop their business ideas here. The only measures we see to encourage people to come to Croatia are related to the deficit of the workforce in the summer season.

Increasing the quotas of third-country nationals allowed to come and work here is obviously a necessity, but of equal importance is the encouragement and support of people to move here, open a business or invest, and this needs to be lobbied effectively in order to see any legislative changes.

And talking about legislative changes, coming from a country where we could see and feel firsthand what the positive impact was from adopting a lower, flat VAT rate (16%) did to businesses and the economy. In general, I truly hope we will live to see a lower VAT rate in Croatia, or, at least a girl can dream…”

Migrant Business owners Mirela Rus and Ionut Copoiu at the opening of their Zagreb store.

Kekuš also agreed that “bureaucratic problems and barriers for third-country nationals (Non-EU countries) are numerous”.

Prince Wale Soniyiki spoke openly about facing many bureaucratic challenges, as well as prejudices. Prince came to Croatia as a refugee from Nigeria, while many of his friends moved on to the seemingly greener, less complicated pastures of Germany. So again, Prince reiterated the need for better systems and support. You can watch a full video interview with Prince, courtesy of Borna Sor below.

What was the overall conclusion from the roundtable?

Ružica Šimić Banović: The overall conclusion was that the potential of the migrant entrepreneurship in Croatia is underestimated and there is a consistent deficit of state strategies and public policies tackling it. In addition, there are prejudices among the stakeholders and general public, mostly related to immigrants from less-developed and war-affected countries. Previously mentioned ignorance combined with very limited openness towards other ethnic groups discourages their entrepreneurial initiatives and integration in the society. That insensitivity towards foreigners is in a way surprising because of the long emigration tradition for Croatians.

The surveys across EU countries show that respondents with personal immigration experience are more likely to have a positive attitude towards other immigrants.  However, this does not seem to be the case in Croatia, despite the obvious fact that we urgently need more entrepreneurial spirit and foreign workforce in many sectors.

Hence, the changes need to be both bottom-up and top-down, i.e. the incumbents implementing adequate policies, other stakeholders recognising the importance of the migrant entrepreneurship and integration of foreigners in general, and finally, ordinary people questioning and hopefully changing their attitudes on those matters.

Let me also stress that even the entrepreneurs coming from the EU countries continuously face the barriers when doing business in Croatia. Those include administrative burden, unpredictable tax regulations, high tax rates and overly strict employment regulations. Local entrepreneurs keep warning about the mentioned barriers for decades. In addition, there are obstacles specific to foreign entrepreneurs like the lack of clear instructions in English for doing business. Non-EU citizens keep facing the work permit and mandatory financial capital problems as well.

So, are there opportunities for migrant businesses and foreign investment in Croatia?

Are there business opportunities in Croatia? Yes. Are the current systems in place to support migrant businesses and investment conducive to growth, development and a flourishing entrepreneur scene? No, not as it currently stands.

The overwhelming conclusion on all sides was that Croatia is seriously lacking systemic structures and processes to support migrant business owners, entrepreneurs and foreign investment. Combine this with apparent prejudices, and lack of open-mindedness – especially related to third-country migrants, and it seems that Croatia has a way to go. Hopefully, the government pays attention to valuable discussions like these, and we see some changes in policy and structures to encourage migrant business owners and positive foreign investment.

Members from CEPOR are currently preparing a policy brief on immigrant entrepreneurship in Croatia which will be published soon, and we will be sure to follow-up with. For more business-related news in Croatia, you may want to read and follow our business page.

Many thanks to Ružica Šimić Banović and Mirela Alpeza for their in-depth responses on the subject. 

Pula's Arena Hospitality Group, which refers to itself as one of the most dynamic hospitality groups in Central and Eastern Europe, currently offers a portfolio of 26 owned, co-owned, leased and managed properties with more than 10,000 rooms and accommodation units here in Croatia, as well as in Germany and Hungary.

As Marija Crnjak/Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 5th of March, 2019, the total investments of the Arena Hospitality Group in 2018 and 2019 amount to 447 million kuna in hotels and camps in both the Republic of Croatia and over in Germany, plus the 190 million kuna that the group plans to invest in the reconstruction of the much loved Hotel Brioni (Brijuni). 

This was stated in the presentation of the Arena Hospitality Group's very impressive business results. The company claims it is also now ready for yet more new acquisitions across Central and Eastern Europe. As is already known, through public offers, the group collected a massive 788 million kuna back in 2017, and since then, they have invested on average three times more than before the public offer.

The Arena Hospitality Group is currently operating in the aforementioned three countries, under four brands, including Park Plaza and Art'otel, last year the company earned 758 million kuna in total revenue, an increase of 5.6 percent when compared to their record back in 2017, accompanied by healthy growth in all segments, hotels, tourist resorts and camp sites. In Croatia alone, they experienced handsome revenues of 503.8 million kuna.

After 2018's big investment in Glamping Arena One 99, worth 70 million kuna, this year, an investment of 128 million kuna is planned in Kažela camp, 60 million kuna is the planned amount to invest in Verudela Beach, a tourist resort, which should be completed by the year 2020, when the beginning of the works at Hotel Brioni (Brijuni) are planned. In the reconstruction of Art'otel Berlin Kudamm alone, the company will invest 53 million kuna.

Make sure to stay up to date on investments in Croatia, doing business in Croatia and everything in between by following our dedicated business page.

Click here for the original article by Marija Crnjak for Poslovni Dnevnik

Croatia's infamous VAT is throwing prices around much more than one might expect at first when shopping in Lidl or Spar. Just how does your weekly shop in Croatia compare to a weekly shop in neighbouring Slovenia?

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 5th of March, 2019, when taking a walk through six Slovenian and Croatian shops, it didn't take long to realise that retailers are struggling with their own branded goods, which are already sold at relatively low prices, and they could actually save well on them.

The popular Italian retail chain Eurospin, known for its discount prices, hasn't yet opened its doors in Croatia, but it can be revealed that the retail companty is indeed looking for locations for its stores across the country. It also has its own website in Croatian language on which the following has been published: "Still a little more patience ... We're coming."

A group of 24sata journalists from Croatia visited their store in Laško in neighbouring Slovenia to check if their prices really are lower than their competitors, and what prices were in comparison to the Croatian market.

They selected a basket of fourteen different products and compared then - Eurospin was cheaper than the first competitor in Slovenia by just a few lipa.

They also compared the prices in Slovenian stores with those in Croatia - some shopping baskets are very much the same, and the difference between the cheapest Slovenian product and the most expensive Croatian one is 22 kuna. However, it should be borne in mind that Slovenians have two tax rates applied when it comes to retail - 22 and 9.5 percent, and they also have a lower VAT rate (surprise, surprise) than is applied in Croatia, of 25 and 13 percent.

Eurospin appears very similar to the already popular Lidl.

When comparing the cheapest Slovenian and cheapest Croatian basket, the difference is 10.82 kuna. There were, as stated, forteen different products in the basket. When looking around on February the 25th of this year, the group of Croatian journalists visited the popular Slovenian shops including Eurospin, Lidl, Spar, and Mercator, the majority owner of which is Croatia's formerly ailing Agrokor.

They tried to find the cheapest products (flour, oil, butter...). When comparing detergents and softeners, they looked for products that were cheaper per litre, regardless of the size of the packaging, ie, whether the product volume is one, two, four litres...

Their cart showed that Eurospin was actually slightly more expensive than Croatia's beloved Lidl, at least on that day - by 2.30 kuna, Spar was cheaper by 3.60 kuna, and Mercator was cheaper by a not so insignificant 21.53 kuna.

Eurospin and Lidl have been shown to have relatively similar prices, and according to their trade concept, each reminds one of the other. Spar, which had the biggest store in Laško, had similar and sometimes identical prices as those in Eurospin. Only Mercator was considerably more expensive than the others, but their overall offer, just like at Spar, was much richer than that of Lidl and Eurospin.

The Italian discount store, just like Lidl, often only offers its own brands on it shelves, or products made by only one manufacturer - for example, only one type of oil, one type of sugar, one type of flour, etc.

The 24sata journalists compared the products purchased over in Slovenia to those in Lidl and Spar in Zagreb the following day, once again searching for the cheapest of all.

The most expensive shopping basket in Zagreb was from Lidl and it was 13.67 kuna more expensive than Eurospin in Slovenia. Let's remember, it should be taken into account that VAT in Croatia is higher certainly has a big influence over Croatian prices. The cheapest basket was from Spar in Zagreb, but when compared to Eurospin in Slovenia, it was still more expensive - by 8.52 kuna.

Make sure to stay up to date by following our dedicated business page.

Click here for the original article by Ivancica Ladisic and Katarina Dimitrijevic Hrnjkas for 24sata

As Adriano Milovan/Novac.hr writes on the 4th of March, 2019, the situation on the Croatian labour market is all the more alarming: despite the significant number of registered unemployed people, there are numerous activities for which a labour force must be imported. With regard to the further trends on the labour market, as well as the challenges that Croatia is facing in terms of a digital revolution, Novac sat down and talked to the leading man of the consulting house of the EC in Croatia, Berislav Horvat. Berislav Horvat has good knowledge of the trends on the labour market, as well as on entrepreneurial scenes across Croatia.

We're approaching the 6th anniversary of EU membership and the 28th anniversary of independence. While we have achieved our main political goals as a country, it's a general belief that we've left it a bit late when coming up with an economic plan. How do you assess the current development of entrepreneurship in Croatia, especially compared to the countries we're usually compared to?

Unfortunately, we have not yet completed the transition process. On the other hand, our entrepreneurs don't yet enjoy the status in our society that they enjoy in other transition countries. In our country, entrepreneurs are still looked at with skepticism, they're still the black sheep in a way, and realistically, they don't deserve such a status. The EC has therefore launched the ''EC entrepreneur of the year'' program, through which we want to show that there are also successful entrepreneurial stories in Croatia.

I personally think that the situation in Croatia and the attitude towards entrepreneurs in the last five years has changed significantly. In that sense, it's enough to say that five years ago in Croatia, practically nobody spoke about startups, funding, and so on. Moreover, these terms weren't even being used. Nowadays, the situation is different: we're talking about that, we look at who started a startup, who invested what, what entrepreneurial incubator was used and the like... So, the focus of the public is slowly changing and turning towards entrepreneurship, but it's not as fast as we'd like it to be.

Exactly. We do have all this Croatia today, but there's still very little of it. Even the many start-up companies belong to ''emergency entrepreneurship'', ie, they're not a real statement of the desire to start a business in order to engage in entrepreneurship, but are driven for the sake of employment...

I think there's far more entrepreneurship in Croatia than we can see. Media attention loves to highlight the negatives and it's difficult for some of the entrepreneurs to become a star in such a situation.

In Estonia, for example, it's different. Their stars were also once football players, athletes, and starlets, but they systematically worked to change that. Today, after twenty or more years, Estonia's main stars are entrepreneurs, which, of course, doesn't mean that their media doesn't highlight lifestyle [sections] and that jet set type people aren't stars. There's enough space for everyone.

But we have not yet reached that level. In our public domain, the best still don't dominate [the scene], those who have created something from nothing and succeeded in life with their own work and effort. We've gone too deeply into the negativity and now we can't get out of it, even in the conditions that in recent years the situation with the economy is much better, as is evidenced by the growth in income and profit of companies. That's why we have the impression that everything is bad, and that's just not the case. You can be successful in Croatia.

When you talk to clients, especially those from overseas who want to invest and start a business here, what do they complain about most?

The main problem over the last few years is the lack of workforce. Mass emigration from Croatia resulted in a shortage of workers. Before that, you could feel a lack of workforce in tourism, hospitality and construction, and now that's the case in almost all sectors. This will surely be a major obstacle to the further development of Croatia. An example is the construction industry, which even for a secure job constructing something, you can no longer find people to do it.

Once, our main problem was unemployment, and now it's a shortage of workers. According to some estimates, even among those who are officially registered as unemployed, there are only actually 10,000 to 15,000 who really are unemployed, while others have remained registered as such for other reasons.

On the other hand, this year we've got a quota of 65,000 foreign workers we can import. This is the record for now, and it's quite certain that this quota, and thus the number of foreign workers in Croatia will grow in the next few years.

Apart from tourism and construction, which sectors lack a workforce the most?

Definitely the IT sector. Practically every IT company I know would hire 100 developers tomorrow because there's a lot of work. Most of them work on foreign markets, where the demand is higher than the supply.

Do you expect bigger waves of emigration from Croatia? Let us not forget that next year the doors of to the Austrian labour market, the last in the EU [to keep restrictions on Croatian workers] will open...

Emigration will still continue. True, Austria could attract a part of our workforce because it's close and workers will be able to come and go virtually from weekend to weekend. So, emigration will continue, but there will be returns, especially as salaries in Croatia are rising. Estimates for the future are difficult to give, but it's clear that the shortage of workforce will remain the number one issue for Croatia in the next few years.

How do we solve the problem of the lack of workforce?

We will have to turn to the import of labour, in the long term. But let's not forget that because of this shortage of labour in Croatia, there's a rise in wages, which means that some of the Croats who have left will come back in time. They will simply begin to calculate whether it's worth living abroad or here. Let's be realistic, many of our emigrants, especially those who are paid less, don't live in the best conditions in the countries they've moved to, so we already have cases where people are returning. The salary increase in Croatia will bring back some of those who left the country.

There is also the problem of education, the programs of which should be adapted to the needs of the labour market, just as enrollment quotas should be.

What could the state do to reduce emigration and boost returns?

The state could intervene in tax policy measures. Further reductions in personal income tax and the abolition of the highest tax rate would greatly help people increase their net salaries. This would lead to less people leaving and some former emigrants returning.

But, how usefeul are such efforts when taking into account the state of public finances, especially the pension and health system?

These measures can be implemented, but the only way to do that is to reduce the spending of the state, on both a central and a local level. This implies reforms. There is also a need to increase the base of people who pay taxes, or more people bring to the labour market.

Now the situation is almost ideal for some action to be taken: in the real sector there is a lack of people, and in the public there is a surplus of employees. The economy is growing, and the government is stable, so there should not be many problems and the solution is obvious. So, we just have to implement the reforms we're talking about. This is a historical moment that this government has and it must use it.

The world is undergoing a new digital revolution, but we're lagging behind. Moreover, we're still dealing with ''classic'' industries. What are the perspectives open to us?

Digitisation opens up a large area, and a large number of companies that are opening in Croatia are IT companies, so we can't say that we're not following trends in the digital world. Existing, already established Croatian companies invest heavily in digitisation. For many Croatian companies, the EC helps in the introduction of software robotisation. While, for example, Gideon Brothers produced real autonomous robots, which instead of forklifts drive pallets by warehouse, and our domestic companies, such as Atlantica, Orbica and Tokić, are already piloting projects with this new technology. Or, let's say, Mate Rimac, our EC entrepreneur of the year, who, besides producing cars, works hard on the development of the use of digital technologies, and all this is happening in Croatia.

You are in contact with investors. What is the current interest in Croatia from investors?

We are a world leader in auditing and consulting services. We have 270,000 employees worldwide, and in Croatia there are more than 220. Among our clients, we have a lot of investors who want to invest here, especially private equity funds. Still, the problem is that they are looking for big investments, those of 20 or 30 million euros, and there aren't many like that in Croatia. In the case of Croatia, it would probably have helped us to have venture capital funds, which would aid startups. Otherwise, HBOR and EIF have recently launched a venture capital program, which is good for entrepreneurship development in Croatia, but, it's also necessary to have a network of business angels, venture capital funds and private equity funds, so that the system can accommodate and enable funding at all stages of entrepreneurship development.

How does the digital revolution reflect on the EC?

The EC is doing a lot of work on digitalisation. We have digitised our internal talent management system and now we have ''click'' solutions. Numerous processes have been robotised. One digital marketing company joined us last year, so now we have a rounded service - from tips to accessing a buyer, to the performance of the app or website. Customers want less advice, they're now seeking complete solutions, and we can offer them that now. This also allows us to work on innovations. We're also investing hundreds of millions of dollars in audit tools and technology so we can carry out EC digital audits worldwide. I can say that a lot has changed since I started doing this job sixteen years ago!

Make sureto stay up to date by following our dedicated business page.

Click here for the original article/interview by Adriano Milovan for Novac.hr/Jutarnji

Zagreb like Monte Carlo, and Croatia like Monaco. That doesn't sound so bad, does it? Meet Andrija Matiukha, a 46-year-old Ukrainian businessman who has not only ideas and visions, but the means and a company, and he is in love with Croatia.

As Novac/Petra Plivelic writes on the 3rd of March, the Ukrainian businessman says that he likes Croatia as a country and he likes people.

''First of all, it doesn't differ that much from Ukraine. We share a similar mentality, language, Slavic people who understand each other. It's therefore easier for me to adapt to Croatia than it is in Romania or in countries like Germany or England because they have a different mentality. Croatia is beautiful and it's impossible not to fall in love with it when you visit it,'' said Matiukhi, who lived in Kiev a year ago, but now lives with his family in Zagreb.

When he started a business in Croatia, he came several times a month for a couple of days to control the situation, but soon realised that such an approach didn't really work and if he wanted to develop the business he had planned, he had to move to Croatia. Matiukho is the owner of a group of companies called FavBet, whose primary interest is, as the name suggests, sports betting.

"We have a desire and intent to engage in a lot of projects here,'' says the Ukrainian businessman, otherwise the owner of the Diamond Palace Casino in Zagreb and the Magic Night Club, which also includes the Casino Crystal Palace restaurant in Rijeka.

''We currently have about fifty bookmakers in Croatia, and this year's goal is to open another 50 more. But in this business, betting has moved online, so we're not focusing too much on investments in this area, but as soon as we get a good location, we'll definitely open a betting shop,'' he explained.

When it comes to casinos, both Zagreb locals and tourists are targeted because there is a special clientele, while in other cities they target local people since tourists are coming for family holidays rather than to gamble in casinos. Zagreb, however, is an exception, he says.

Online betting has survived in Croatia, but FavBet, says Matiukha, currently has no license for this type of business and is now in the process of adapting its product to the requirements of the local market.

''Everything has to be certified, so it's a bit more of a demanding process, but we're not going to give up. Next year, we'll certainly have an online betting and online casino license,'' he added. Until then, his plans aren't lacking.

''We're planning to open a hotel near the casino in Zagreb. It will be a boutique hotel with forty rooms. It's a building next to the Diamond Palace Casino. We're now in the process of buying space from the Croatian Chamber of Commerce and in a year and a half, the hotel should be open. We're already all thinking about designs and interiors,'' explained the goal-driven Ukrainian businessman who is currently involved in a business venture in Split.

"We bought a building in the centre of Split and we'll open another large casino of more than 1,000 square metres in June. This will be our third major casino in Croatia, with the one in Zagreb, Rijeka, and Split, and we will soon open a number of modern slot machines in Osijek, Zelina, Zadar and Makarska,'' announced Matiukhi, who has a couple more things up his sleeve. He also intends to invest in tourist projects down in Dalmatia.

''My job is related to gambling and I have a license for casinos, betting shops and slot machines, all of which we're developing in Croatia, as well as our online business. But all this is related to fun, which is part of our wider interest. We're planning to open a fun park like Disneyland, actually... like Gardaland. I can see great prospects for such a job in Croatia. We're not planning on many of those parks, maybe one in Istria, one in Dalmatia and one near Zagreb. And besides, that goes hand in hand with the hotel business because it's closely related to entertainment. It's our goal to develop everything that is related to fun, because gambling is fun. In Asia, that's part of the culture, let's say. Those who don't gamble are considered strange. It's just normal for people to gamble,'' Matiukha claims. Croats, however, are still far from making such habits the norm.

''You are Europeans and that's not really your style. I've even noticed differences in the habits of people from different parts of Croatia. Dalmatian people and people from the south general are more into gambling than people living in the northern parts of Croatia,'' says the Ukrainian businessman.

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Click here for the original article by Petra Plivelic for Novac/Jutarnji

What with the playground-like rivalry between neighbours Croatia and Slovenia still going on, however less loudly, one has to wonder just where Croatia might be going wrong in relation to its much smaller neighbour to the north. Slovenia's Koper Port made ten times more money than the not so far away Rijeka Port in Croatia did in 2018.

While Slovenia has indeed attracted more and more tourists over the last few years, Croatia still undoubtedly takes the cake when it comes to making huge income from tourism. Croatia's ports, especially in Dalmatia, can be hectic and chaotic places, with cruise ships coming and going on an almost constant basis and local people's lives disrupted heavily during the tourist season. Rijeka Port, however, while having seen a rise in the number of cruise ships arriving, seems to be losing out quite significantly to the far less ''touristy'' Koper Port.

As Morski writes on the 3rd of March, 2019, the Slovenian Port of Koper enjoyed some very handsome revenues of 226 million euros, equal to one billion and 695 million kuna last year, which is seven percent more than was recorded by the major Slovenian port back in 2017.

Koper Port's net profit rose by a massive 71 percent to an impressive sixty million euros, according to a report from SEEbiz.

At the same time, the largest Croatian port, Rijeka Port, doesn't seem to be doing all that well, at least when compared to Koper. In 2018, according to the available financial report(s), Rijeka Port concluded last year with a total revenue of 171 million kuna, or 22.8 million euros, which is a rather concerning ten times less than the Slovenian Port of Koper. When Rijeka Port deducts some of that amount from its expenditures, a profit of just 848,000 kuna remains.

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Investment in Croatia has stagnated in certain important areas, despite interest from domestic investors having been drawn to other more promising areas, such as the hotel sector. Foreign investment in Croatia, despite having occurred in some quite large projects, is still dwindling.

As Marija Crnjak/Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 1st of March, 2019, the focus of investors last year was largely on shopping centres and of course the apparently eternal hotel sector, although figures didn't exceed those seen during the year before the crisis hit. The value of commercial real estate transactions last year was twice as high as it was during 2017, reaching about 810 million euros.

While, as stated, the main focus of investment in Croatia has been on shopping centres and the hotel sector recently, there has been considerably less movement in numerous other areas, the number of construction projects seeing investment in Croatia, for example, has not yet overtaken the position it held the year before the crisis. The market for industrial and logistics property is still easily the least developed of all, despite its enormous potential and demand, and the office space market is most lacking in large office space available, according to an annual review carried out by the Colliers International consultancy company.

"The growth in the number of transactions last year is a result of the positive sentiment of investors and attractive returns, given that Croatia has stabilised economically in relation to the markets in the environment, the investment risk has been reduced, as the rating agencies showed. However, there's still a lack of greenfield investments and major projects, as well as there is a large number of foreign investors missing from the picture,'' said Vedrana Likan, the director of the Colliers Croatian office.

Once again last year, domestic investors wanting to pursue investment in Croatia were the by far the most active on the market, accounting for 50 percent of all value transactions, while the most active foreign investors were property investment funds from South Africa, with a 40 percent stake in the volume of transactions in 2018. The top transactions were the entry of PND Strategy of Danko Čorić into Hotel Maestral, Immofinanz bought eight retail parks in Croatia, Slovenia and Serbia, while the Tower Property Fund purchased industrial property in Žitnjak.

This year, a similar number of transactions are expected, just like last year, with a boost of the presence of investors from the Middle and Far East, China, the United Arab Emirates, and Korea. Most transactions are expected in tourism and office property, while retail will have weaker growth due to the fact that the market is already quite saturated. In the retail segment, the potential risk in Colliers is reflected in negative demographic trends and ever-growing internet commerce.

The need is for larger office spaces of 1,500 square metres, and such spaces are almost unavailable on the Croatian market, there is also a dire need for office class A. Despite the low office vacancy rate (4.5 percent) this area has remained at the level of 2017 (12-13 euros per square metre). Colliers has seen stronger developer activity due to the high demand and the lack of modern storage and logistics space(s)available, they have also warned of unfavourable conditions for the construction of such buildings due to high communal fees, which are still charged in Croatia per cubic metre rather than per square metre.

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Click here for the original article by Marija Crnjak for Poslovni Dnevnik

As Index writes on the 26th of February, 2019, a panel discussion and a study on the restructuring of Agrokor organised by TMA Europe was held today in Zagreb. Its speakers were Agrokor's extraordinary commissioner Fabris Peruško, his deputy Irena Weber, as well as other most important people who were involved in restructuring the formerly ailing company which once threatened to collapse the Croatian economy almost entirely.

Alastair Beveridge from AlixPartners and Goran Horvat of KPMG Croatia also spoke, as N1 reports. Peruško stated that if this key Croatian company was in Germany, it would have had 650 billion euro impact on the budget.

In addition to describing the impact it would have had on the budget over in Germany, Peruško also added that if Agrokor existed in Germany, it would be able to employ a massive 900,000 people and the suppliers themselves would have five million employees.

He detailed the entire history of Agrokor's long and often agonising restructuring process, from its liquidity and its huge debt problems, all the way through to the development of a special law to the settlement process.

"The Agrokor administration tried to resolve the situation, and at the same time the government attempted to create Option B in case the management failed to come up with solutions with large banks and suppliers. The existing law didn't foresee a procedure for such a large company and the government issued a law on April the 6th based on the Italian case of Parmalat, and Agrokor's leadership resigned, after which the extraordinary administration entered [into the company] on April the 10th,'' stated Peruško.

The law protected 60,000 jobs in Agrokor and prevented spill overs to other suppliers, ultimately stopping the chance of bankruptcy of Agrokor's numerous affiliated companies.

''As I said at the beginning, we're talking about more than 3.5 percent of revenue in the Croatian budget, and we've prevented the spilling over of this to other countries because Agrokor is the largest employer in Slovenia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the second [largest] in Serbia, it all coincided with the tourist season and Agrokor is the largest supplier of tourism infrastructure. The economy has recovered from the recession and a new shock would have had a devastating effect on the economy,'' said Peruško, announcing the following steps in Agrokor's restructuring process, ie the transfer of operations to its mirror companies, as well as the business plan.

Alastair Beveridge from AlixPartners, a company which was a frequent target of ex Agrokor boss Ivica Todorić's accusatory blog posts, referred to Agrokor's restructuring as being unique in this region and said that one of the biggest problems (which is rather characteristic of administrative bodies in all sectors in Croatia in general) was the lack of information. He added that the amount of cash was shockingly mininal and that at one point, a mere ten kuna alone sat in the gigantic company's account. Beveridge's remarks are a terrifying reminder of what could have become of Agrokor, its many suppliers, jobs, and the Croatian economy.

"Many companies had ceased their production, so one of the issues was launching production, and that's what we needed to collect cash for. We had to look at each business well and set priorities. With nearly fifty assistants, we raised almost 400 million euros. I think it's a big step to borrow money to such a huge company. In the end, we had two offers, only one could manage to arrive in time, we managed, with the help the Croatian National Bank, to secure 540 million euro of fresh money which came in early June, which saved the company,'' Beveridge said.

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