ZAGREB, Nov 18, 2020 - Croatia entered the COVID-19 crisis with vulnerabilities linked to the government, private sector, and external debt in a context of low potential growth, so the European Commission on Wednesday again recommended making an in-depth review to estimate macroeconomic imbalances.

In the Alert Mechanism Report, a screening device to detect potential macroeconomic imbalances, the Commission recommends that in-depth reviews to identify and assess the severity of possible macroeconomic imbalances should be prepared in 2021 for the same 12 member states that had already been identified as having imbalances or excessive imbalances in February 2020.

Croatia, France, Germany, Ireland, Netherlands, Portugal, Romania, Spain, and Sweden have imbalances, while Cyprus, Greece, and Italy have excessive imbalances.

"With the COVID-19 crisis, debt ratios and unemployment are expected to increase. Overall, the Commission finds it opportune, also taking into account the identification of an imbalance in February, to examine further the persistence of imbalances or their unwinding," the report says about Croatia.

For several years until 2019, Croatia had excessive macroeconomic imbalances. In February of that year, the Commission established that the imbalances were no longer excessive.

Croatia's considerably negative net international investment position "continued improving in 2019 and the current account surplus increased towards 3% of GDP. Risks to external sustainability are alleviated by the relatively large share of FDI (foreign direct investment) in total foreign liabilities. The current account balance is expected to turn negative in 2020, much on account of the weak tourism," the Commission says in the latest report.

"The private sector debt ratio continued declining in 2019. The large share of debt remains denominated in foreign currency generating exchange rate risk," the Commission says.

"Real house price growth accelerated in 2019 to above 8%, supported by the accelerating growth in mortgage lending... House price growth is forecast to decelerate in light of the COVID-19 crisis."

"Government debt continued declining to a still relatively high 73% of GDP in 2019. In 2020 it is forecast to rise by more than 15 pps. due to the sharp economic downturn and measures to support the economy in light of the COVID-19 pandemic," according to the report.

"The banking sector is characterized by moderate profitability and relatively strong capitalization, but also relatively high, though declining, NPLs (non-performing loans). NPLs are likely to increase once government support measures in response to the COVID-19 crisis have been phased out."

"The unemployment rate reached an all-time low of 6.6% in 2019, accompanied by strong decreases in both long-term and youth unemployment. However, unemployment is forecast to increase with the current crisis," the Commission says.

ZAGREB, November 18, 2020 - Over the past 24 hours, Croatia has registered a record number of 3,251 new cases of the coronavirus infection, and there have been 38 related deaths, the national COVID-19 crisis management team said on Wednesday.

The number of active cases in Croatia stands at 16,891, there are 1,878 COVID patients in hospitals, and 205 of them are on ventilators.

Since February 25, when Croatia registered its first case, a total of 90,715 people have contracted coronavirus, 1,151 of them have died, while 72,673 have recovered, incuding 1,693 in the last 24 hours.

There are currently 39,937 people in self-isolation.

To date, 640,781 people have been tested for coronavirus, including 9,126 in the last 24 hours.

November 16, 2020 - When the global COVID-19 pandemic reached Croatia, one of the things everyone wanted to know was: how many medical ventilators are there in Croatia to help those suffering from the worst damage to their lungs?

Several months later, one thing remains almost exactly the same: it’s almost impossible to tell what the exact answer to that question is. Unofficially, the number that has been floated around by many, including the Croatian President Zoran Milanović is that there are around 800 ventilators in Croatia. Back in March and April, I tried finding some confirmation for the number being thrown around, and the most official sources back then kept repeating the mantra “the information is not made public because of the security precautions, there are enough ventilators in Croatia, and they will be distributed as needed”. One other thing often mentioned by any official source was that Croatia was planning to procure more ventilators, to make sure we had enough if the second wave hit. A long time ago, way before this current pandemic, Croatia was ranked quite high in terms of the number of critical care beds, corrected for the population. The scientific paper published in intensive care Medicine scientific journal had Croatia on the seventh place in that metric in Europe. 

Well, the second wave did, in fact, hit and now it seems that the number of ventilators in Croatia might again be the question worth asking. And, recently, a report by the RTL seems to give a definitive answer:  there are 867 ventilators in Croatia. The report also provides the distribution of the ventilators within the Croatian hospitals, divided into stationary and mobile ventilators. At the same time, the article itself mentions the number of 1,168 ventilators, without even trying to address the discrepancy between the two figures! The report does not say anything about how they got their numbers, so it’s almost impossible to fact-check them. They do, however, acknowledge that the officials have said that the ventilators will be sent to where they will be needed the most, depending on what’s going on at any given moment with the epidemic in Croatia. And it would appear that no major procurement of additional resources took place during the summer in preparation for the second-wave (we knew was coming). 

Today, as I’m writing this article, there are around 16,000 active cases of COVID-19 in Croatia, with 191 patients on the ventilator. And while we might not know exactly how many ventilators there are in Croatia or where they are, for now, we can be certain that there are enough ventilators in Croatia for the current extent of the epidemic. It's important to keep in mind that it's impossible for all of those ventilators to be used to help COVID patients, as a ventilator is often needed for any type of major surgery, and there are still patients having medical emergencies and having surgery, COVID notwithstanding. At the same time, that doesn’t give us a free pass to behave irresponsibly, as each and every one of us and our behaviour is the key factor in how bad the epidemic is going to get, and how many people will end up needing the ventilator to survive.

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ZAGREB, November 16, 2020 - Over the past 24 hours, Croatia has registered 1,313 new cases of coronavirus infection and there have been 33 related deaths, the national COVID-19 response team said on Monday.

The number of active cases stands at 15,699. There are 1,816 COVID patients in hospitals and 191 of whom are on ventilators.

Since February 25, when Croatia registered its first case of the infection, a total of 85,519 people have contracted the novel coronavirus, 1,082 of them have died and 68,738 have recovered, including 2,507 in the last 24 hours.

There are currently 35,071 people in self-isolation.

To date, 624,393 people have been tested for coronavirus, 4,861 of whom in the last 24 hours.

ZAGREB, November 15, 2020 - Head of Zagreb's Fran Mihaljevic hospital for infectious diseases, Alemka Markotic, has reported on the first meeting of the EU scientific advice platform, which was held on Friday.

It was aggred that EU member states would exchange information on the pandemic and that the main focus would be on testing and reaching a consensus on the duration of quarantine and isolation, as well as on preparations for vaccination.

It was also agreed that they would exchange their experience with validating rapid antigen tests so that different EU countries would not validate the same tests.

"So far, there have been different experiences with those tests," Markotic said.

Next Friday, on November 20, another meeting of the EU platform will take place, and in the next two to three weeks a common position on testing should be established.

ZAGREB, November 15, 2020 - Croatian politician Anto Kovacevic, who was political prisoner in the Socialist Yugoslavia, died at the age of 68 from the consequences of COVID-19, his family reported on Sunday.

Kovacevic, born in 1952 in the northern village of Ada in Bosnia and Herzegovina, served 8.5 years in the prison in Zenica for his political opinions in the Communist-led Yugoslav Federation, and was declared by Amnesty International as a prisoner of conscience.

He was a member of the fourth parliament from 2000 to 2003 after Croatia gained independence.

Kovacevic stood in Croatia's presidential elections in 2005.

He used to be a member of the HKDU party and later of the Croatian Party of Rights Dr. Ante Starcevic.

Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic on Sunday sent a letter of condolences to the Kovacevic family, and wrote that Kovacevic would be remembered for his struggle for the Croatian cause.

ZAGREB, November 15, 2020 - Of 8,175 tests conducted for coronavirus in the last 24 hours, 29% of them, that is 2,365 have returned positive, Croatia's COVID-19 crisis management team reported on Sunday.

There have been 43 COVID-related deaths in the last 24 hours, bringing the total number of the fatalities to 1,049.

Currently, 1,710 patients are receiving hospital treatment, and of them, 194 are placed on ventilators. There are now 16,929 active cases. 

In the last 24 hours, 2,483 people have recovered from this disease.

Since February 25, when the first case was confirmed in the country, 84,209 people have been infected with the novel virus, and 66,231 have recovered.

To date, Croatia has conducted 619,532 tests for coronavirus.

Currently, 38,824 people are self-isolating.

ZAGREB, Nov 14, 2020 - Croatia has recorded 2,866 new coronavirus cases and 38 related deaths in the last 24 hours, the national COVID-19 response team reported on Saturday morning.

The number of active cases currently stands at 17,090. Of them, 1,655 are receiving hospital treatment, including 184 who are ventilators.

A total of 41,615 people are currently in self-isolation.

Since February 25, when the first case was confirmed in the country, 81,844 people have been infected with the novel virus, 1,006 of them have died and 63,748 have recovered, including 2,484 in the last 24 hours.

To date, a total of 611,357 people have tested for coronavirus, including 9,614 in the last 24 hours.

ZAGREB, November 12, 2020 - The COVID pandemic has affected Croatian-Russian economic relations, with trade dropping 21% in the first seven months of the year, and the focus should be on turning the trend around, the Croatian Chamber of Commerce (HGK) said on Thursday in a press release on a Russian-Croatian banking forum.

In the first seven months of 2020, trade between the two countries totalled US$ 228 million, down 21% on the year. We must focus on turning the trend around and work together on returning to the volume of trade which used to exceed $2 billion, the online forum was told.

Banks must play a key role in that, said Josip Zaher, the HGK vice president for commerce and financial institutions.

Croatian Ambassador to Russia Tomislav Car said relations between the two countries were slowly becoming dynamic.

"Both the interstate and economic elements are looking forward, which is a message of encouragement to all of us. However, behind all that are people with their knowledge and ambitions," he said, adding that the embassy and the HGK's Moscow office were always at entrepreneurs' disposal.

Russian Ambassador to Croatia Andrey Nesterenko said all efforts must be focused on the normalisation of relations, with emphasis on banking.

In these difficult times it is very important to continue with activities and maintain continuity in relations. It is also important to learn from one another, exchange ideas and thus find new opportunities in this crisis, he said, announcing that the intergovernmental commission on economic cooperation would meet soon.

The forum's main topic was banking in conditions of the coronavirus pandemic.

Zaher said commercial bank assets at the end of June totalled HRK 444.3 billion, up 4.4% from the end of 2019, while bank profits plunged 48% annually.

The forum was organised by the Association of Russian Banks and the HGK, with the support of the Russian and Moscow Chambers of Commerce and Industry.

(€1 = HRK 7.5)

ZAGREB, November 12, 2020 - The Croatian government on Thursday nominated Dr Alemka Markotic as a member of the European Union's future scientific advisory platform on COVID-19.

Markotic is the head of Zagreb's Fran Mihaljevic hospital for infectious diseases, a professor at the School of Medicine in Rijeka and a member of the national COVID-19 crisis management team.

The platform will soon be set up at the proposal of European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.

The platform will include a group of respectable doctors and researchers from all EU member states whose task will be to ensure a better, faster and coordinated exchange of scientific data and expert opinions as well as practical experience at the EU level.