Drivers need to beware this week as the police will be ever-present checking for the placement of winter tyres and other required equipment up and down the country's roads.

As Index writes on the 11th of November, 2018, some big changes for drivers in Croatia will come into effect as of Thursday. Namely, on most roads, they will need to make sure they're drive with their winter equipment.

The penalty for non-compliance with this important safety regulation currently stands at 700 kuna.

"Although winter begins only at the beginning of December, from November the 15th, winter equipment will be required in the Republic of Croatia.

The Decree on the Mandatory Use of Winter Equipment on Winter Roads in the Republic of Croatia, issued by the Ministry of Maritime Affairs, Transport and Infrastructure, states that winter equipment is mandatory on from the 15th November of the current year to the 15th of April next year, in this case from the 15th og November 2018, to the 15th of April 2019.

According to the Decision, the mandatory use of winter equipment applies to all types of motor vehicles, regardless of the weather conditions and the road conditions,'' explains HAK.

Pursuant to Article 193 of the Road Traffic Safety Act (OG 67/08), winter conditions include snow and ice on pavements too. If the traffic police stop a vehicle on the road without winter tyres and other necessary equipmenr at a time when winter equipment is required, they will be forced to immediately stop the vehicle, or make the driver continue driving on a road on which the movement of that type of vehicle (without winter equipment) is permitted, or to put the winter equipment in place there and then. Otherwise, the driver will face a fine of 700 kuna.

"Tyres are one of the most important parts of the vehicle, and the way in which they work between the car and the road is crucial for safety. It's good that the vehicle has the proper tyres for every time of year, since at temperatures below 7°C, summer tyres lose their elasticity as well as their adherence properties,'' they state from HAK.

Summer tyres almost have no chance whatsoever of properly functioning in the snow, with an extended stopping time which can then become very dangerous. At a temperature of -10°C, a car with summer tyres on travelling at a speed of 60 kilometres per hour will stop only after 55 metres, while a car with winter tyres on will come to a halt after 44 metres.

At lower temperatures, the braking distance is even longer. If the car still has its summer tyres on, it will stop only after 62 metres, with winter tires, it will stop by up to 50 metres.

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Are we about to enter a new digital Croatia as the country's administration finally starts coming around to the idea of scrapping its archaic obsession with paper and payment slips?

As Bernard Ivezic/Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 8th of November, 2018, the e-Citizens (e-Građani) mobile application is set to bring with it a veritable tsunami of very welcome changes. These changes include a new, contactless electronic identity card, the possibility of giving power of attorney electronically, a state login which companies will be able to make use of, payment through a POS device in state administration bodies/institutions, the launch of a shared service centre or the ''state cloud'' and a network of branch offices which will be able to perform electronic services.

All of the aforementioned is just one part of the so-called ''digital tsunami'' that was announced by the Ministry of Administration on Wednesday at the Digital Transformation Conference (DTC 2018). Part of this should be completed by the end of this year, with the rest of what is needed to create a more digital Croatia following in 2019.

Bernard Gršić claimed that 40 projects will see 50 percent of the funds from Croatia's 2020 strategy allocated to them.

''I think that when all these projects are completed, Croatia will be a different place than it is today,'' stated State Secretary Bernard Gršić in hope.

This was supplemented by Zrinka Bulić, who leads the administration for e-Croatia. She stated that next year, they will be launching brand new contactless identity cards.

"You'll have a mobile system for e-Citizens, lean your phone against your contactless ID and you'll get access to the service immediately," said Bulić. She also stated that by the end of this year, you will be able to pay for certain things, such as when renewing an ID card or getting a new driver's license, directly via POS devices in state administration bodies. As of next year, this will be merged through a special platform called e-Pristojbe (e-Fee), which should further simplify it even more.

In other words, this ''digital Croatia'' plan has an overall aim of effectively abolishing Croatia's bizarre and extremely outdated love for endless amounts of paper and archaic payment slips.

"We're working with HUP and HGK, and the interest is very big. HUP has estimated that in 2019, this system will be used by 300 business entities, and in five years, by at least 2000 business entities,'' Bulić added.

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Click here for the original article by Bernard Ivezic for Poslovni Dnevnik

Ivica Todorić returned to Croatia a few days ago following the British decision to extradite him to Croatia to face trial for his alleged crimes within his former company, the gigantic Agrokor Group. Todorić raised the enormous company from its very roots decades ago, employed around 60,000 people, and became one of the most powerful people in not only Croatia, but the wider region. What goes up, however, must eventually come down, and things couldn't have taken more of a 360 turn for the former Agrokor boss if they tried.

From a luxurious life in Kulmerovi dvori up in the hills above Zagreb and gracing the glossy pages of Forbes magazine, to being on the run and appearing as one of Europol's most wanted, to paying £100,000 to the British authorities for relative freedom to live in London on tag for a year, to being extradited to Croatia on a regular Croatia Airlines flight (which was also delayed), and then taken to Zagreb's Remetinec prison. Whoever said life could be predictable? 

Just how does one of Croatia's most formidable characters spend his time behind bars as he awaits trial? 

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 10th of November, 2018, Ivica Todorić, as his wife Vesna said, was actually pleased with the conditions in Remetinec and shares his cell with an individual who is currently serving time behind bars for a fairly petty criminal act.

Todorić and his cellmate must clean up their cell every day, and they do so after getting up at seven o'clock in the morning. For about half an hour after that, which is about as much time as there is between waking up and being given breakfast, which is brought to them in their cell - they have time for personal hygiene and similar things.

Lunch comes at 13:00. If Todorić has any health problems, such as autoimmune conditions, allergies, diseases or intolerances which require a different diet, his menu will be adjusted to him in accordance with a doctor's recommendations. In addition to the menus prescribed by a doctor in the case of potential food issues, prisoners have the right to a religious and a vegetarian menu. For Easter and Christmas, a traditional meal is served, and the daily intake is 3000 calories, according to a report from Večernji list.

After lunch comes time for a rest, and dinner is served at 19:00. During the day, prisoners are provided with a two-hour walk through the prison circle. There are three walkways in Remetinec. The men and the women are separated for this also.

Showering happens at least once a week, it can be more frequent, but it doesn't occur every day.

Television can be watched until 23:00, and on Fridays, Saturdays, holidays, and for the duration of any sort of football championship, for an hour longer. After that time, it's lights out. Visits are on Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and the first and third Sunday of the month, and visitation permission is given by the competent investigating judge.

Find out more about Ivica Todorić here.

Ivica Todorić has returned to Croatia after more than a year in London, having landed on the territory of a country in which he is no longer the owner of the largest regional company. Exactly one year after handing himself in in the British capital, living under the watchful eye of the Metropolitan police and after an agonisingly long court battle, Agrokor's former untouchable main man returned to his homeland utterly powerless. A far cry from the not so distant reality Todorić once enjoyed, having once owned his own private island, Smokvica.

As Jutarnji/Vanja Nezirovic writes on the 9th of November, 2018, unlike back on the 10th of April 2017, when he signed Lex Agrokor, which activated the law to allow the Croatian Government to step in and rescue Agrokor, and unlike in the autumn of the same year when he temporarily "emigrated" to London, Agrokor's largest single owner is now Russia's Sberbank with a 39.2 percent stake. The settlement was a long and painfully complex process, however, in order to execute such a settlement, creditors, primarily financial lenders, had to write off a large part of their claims, around 60 percent.

Namely, the exact amount and percentage of the final write-off of the creditor's claims will be known at the time when Agrokor is sold. To recall, on April the 10th, 2017, Agrokor had 7.7 billion euro in debt, of which about 1.5 billion euro was debt within the group, which means that the debt to third parties actually amounted to about 6.2 billion euro.

If we know that the framework calculations of Agrokor's value are projected at about 2.3 billion euro, this would mean that the creditors, primarily financially (based on this nominal projection), were forced to give up an enormous total of about 4 billion euro. This was the price of the survival of Agrokor, which for now, following these write-offs, has a debt of 1.06 billion euro in so-called roll up loans.

Agrokor's medium and large suppliers have so far averaged 60 percent of their claims for goods and services, were paid 500 million euro in cach for old debts, with 46 percent of them having a return of between 80 and 100 percent. When the rest of the debt is paid out over four years, and when part of Agrokor's property is converted, their return will amount to about 80 percent. The bonds' return rate ranges between 40 percent and 80 percent, while the largest number of domestic and foreign financial institutions and other creditors will have an average return on demand of up to 20 percent.

At the time of signing Lex Agrokor, Todorić's Agrokor Group was blocked in the amount of 3 billion kuna, and it was naturally expected that this dire situation could lead to Croatia into a short-term recession. The possibility of Agrokor's bankcruptcy could have, according to CNB/HNB (Croatian National Bank) projections, lead to several smaller banks entering into a very dangerous situation indeed, yet while the banking system luckily remained stable, the losses bigger banks suffered were felt almost immediately.

Even with the implementation of a specially regulated bankruptcy proceeding through Lex Agrokor, several contract suppliers ended up in bankruptcy or having to undertake pre-bankruptcy proceedings, some stabilised the recapitalisation of third parties, some are still awaiting ownership and business restructuring, but a stronger economic and social shock was thankfully avoided.

Today, Agrokor's debt has been reduced to levels that should be viable, things are generally much more stable and the company is expected to return to normal function in 2019. The results of companies like Jamnica and Ledo, are once again very good, Konzum seems to be more than just recovering, but some other companies from within the large Agrokor umbrella, like Velpro and Konzum BiH (Bosnia and Herzegovina) are still very vulnerable.

It's also clear that agricultural companies such as Vupik will need some more time to recover properly, but the overall picture of the company today is much more healthy than it was a year ago, thanks to the current extraordinary commissioner, Fabris Peruško.

That means that the Croatian economy, a much more than significant part of which is made up by Agrokor, has gone from being under grave threat, to being more stable, more safe, and more competitive.

Want to keep up with the latest news and detailed information on Ivica Todorić and his swapping of London for Remetinec prison? Make sure to follow everything here.

Click here for the original article by Vanja Nezirovic for Jutarnji List

The list of charges against Ivica Todorić are as incredible as they are damning, but will this just be another situation without any real end?

As tportal/Zoran Korda writes on the 8th of November, 2018, just ten days after the British decided to finally extradite Ivica Todorić to Croatia to face trial for his alleged crimes within the giant Agrokor Group, he arrived in the Croatian capital of Zagreb.

After spending the night in Remetinec prison following a regular Croatia Airlines flight to Franjo Tudjman Airport from London Heathrow, the former owner of Agrokor should now go before the investigative judge of the Zagreb County Court, faced with allegations of malversations that damaged his former company for a massive 1.6 billion kuna.

Let's take a look back at just what the charges against Ivica Todorić are.

During the first investigation which launched back in October last year, Todorić, along with his sons Ante and Ivan and another dozen former senior Agrokor managers and auditors, are suspected of multiple criminal acts in doing business, including the forgery of documents.

The main point of the investigation was focused on deception involving financial statements over the last ten years. The initial suspicion was based on the results of a PwC audit, which found that by concealing the real costs and debts, and by overestimating the company's gains, Todorić unlawfully paid the dividend.

This came to a total of 720 million kuna, which was apparently paid to Todorić, more specifically his Dutch company Adria Group Holding BV, for quite a number of years.

Todorić is also suspected of misusing Agrokor's money for the launch of an initial public shares offer (IPO), for collecting fresh capital and listing Agrokor on the London Stock Exchange. The audit found that a sum of about two billion kuna intended for this purpose was mostly used to cover his personal expenses.

The former owner of Agrokor is also charged for withdrawing money from Agrokor to finance his personal financial operations. He is therefore suspected of having embezzled around 650 million kuna in complex financial transactions for the purchase of Agrokor's shares by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD).

A loan of 192 million kuna, approved by Agrokor, was used for interest payments for PIK (payment in kind) bonds, issued back in 2014 for Mercator's takeover. Todorić was formally obliged to return this borrowed money from the future dividends of Agrokor. However, the money was never returned, and the loans didn't present themselves in the balance, but were instead classified as cash.

There is also a suspicion of him having organised the undercover financing of the company through a monopoly business in order to attempt to properly conceal the actual debt situation. In this way, the overall figure was falsely cut by as much as 1.5 billion kuna.

A second investigation was launched in December last year, and that relates to illegal loans which the private investment fund Nexus Private Equity gave to Agrokor back in 2016, through the Nexus company.

In the ongoing legal proceedings so far, the prosecution has examined 16 out of 17 witnesses and can't actually get to the last of them all because the individual in question lives in the Netherlands and is a citizen of that country.

Still to come is the very extensive financial and auditing expertise carried out by the KPMG audit firm, which should be completed by the end of the year.

While it has been reported that Todorić is set to remain in custody for now, owing to an apparent ''flight risk'', the belief still remains that Todoric will likely await his actual trial in freedom, as there is no longer any danger of him or others influencing any witnesses.

Want to keep up with the charges against Ivica Todorić now he's back in Croatia? Stay up to date here.

Click here for the original article by Zoran Korda for tportal

Exactly one year after handing himself over to the British authorities at Charing Cross Station in London, the extradition of Ivica Todorić to Croatia to face trial for his alleged crimes in Agrokor, has finally happened.

To briefly recall, Ivica Todorić handed himself over to the British authorities following the issuing of a European Arrest Warrant by Croatia. The metropolitan police then detained Todorić as the warrant prescribed, before releasing him on bail after he paid the £100,000 fee. He continued to live at relative liberty in London for the next year, fighting his looming extradition.

Earlier this year, the British rejected Todorić's appeals and approved his extradition, and exactly one year to the day of his first contact with the London police, the British extradited him, on a regular Croatia Airlines flight, back to the Croatian capital, where the Croatian police awaited his arrival.

Well known N1 journalist Hrvoje Krešić tweeted yesterday afternoon that Todorić was in the process of transition and that he was expected in Croatia soon.

As Index writes on the 7th of November, 2018, at 16:45, HRT announced that Ivica Todorić had been seen at London Heathrow Airport.

The regular Croatia Airlines flight from London Heathrow was delayed as boarding took a while, and Todorić was the first to enter the aircraft with his police escorts. He was separated from other passengers, and his wife Vesna Todorić was not allowed to sit next to him.

His wife, Vesna, who had to leave her husband upon landing in Zagreb, was asked how she felt. She responded, visibly shaken: ''How would you feel if you were extradited? He's an innocent man. My husband is innocent, he hasn't stolen anything. I'm going home, and he's going to jail.''

Todorić himself remained calm, and was allegedly reading British newspapers and drinking Jana water on board. Although filming and taking photographs on the flight was strictly forbidden, upon being asked how he felt by journalists on the flight, he said that he ''felt good''.

The extradition of Ivica Todorić was nowhere near as eventful as many had hoped, and his flight ended up landing at Zagreb's Franjo Tudjman Airport at 20:58 last night, where a police transfer van was already waiting for him.

Todorić didn't leave the airport through the regular passenger terminal, and was arrested and escorted to the police van upon his arrival at Zagreb Airport, the police then took him straight to Remetinec prison.

To recall, official investigations against Ivica Todorić, his sons Ivan and Ante, and twelve of Agrokor's former managers and auditors were launched last year for the illegal obtaining of one billion and 142 million kuna from Agrokor, which almost dragged the Croatian economy to its knees. Click here for detailed information on exactly what happened within Agrokor, and get better acquainted with Todorić's situation up until now here.

Want to keep up with more info on the extradition of Ivica Todorić and the processes that will now follow? Make sure to keep up with our news page.

As Bernard Ivezic/Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 7th of November, 2018, Visage Technologies is the eighth fastest growing high-tech company in Sweden, but it boasts many Croatian employees, in fact 60 of its 70 workers are based here in Croatia.

According to the co-founder of the aforementioned company and professor Igor S. Pandžić from the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing (FER), in practice, this is how digital transformation really looks. At the Digital Transformation (DTC 2018) conference, which began in Zagreb on Tuesday, Pandžić said he had founded the company in Sweden 16 years ago, because he could not do anything here in Croatia.

While being able to get the project off the ground in Croatia proved difficult, having Croatian employees seems to have aided the company in its success.

"An employee at a public university in Sweden owns the results of his own research, he can publish it and use it. Furthermore, with one document, he can get his research valorised and use that document to immediately set up a company,'' Pandžić stated.

It was easier to set up a company in 2002 and become a shareholder in Linköping, a city 200 kilometres from Stockholm, than it is to do on this very day in Zagreb. Pandžić pointed out that Croatia shouldn't be remotely surprised by the negative place it holds on the various competitiveness charts, the DESI index, the World Economic Forum reports, and other international indicators.

Visage Technologies, a company that continuously searches for developers in Croatia, and boasts a very large number of Croatian employees, otherwise deals with industry-specific computer identification technologies.

As far as global success is concerned, it may be best to point out that when Wired wanted to explain how something worked on the then brand new IPhone X, the first company they got in touch with was Visage Technologies.

The products of the Swedish-Croatian company are used by Fujitsu, Coca-Cola, Canon, BMW, McDonald's, Deutsche Telekom, Philips, Sony PlayStation, Škoda, L'Oreal, Novartis and Ogilvy, as well as famous faculties such as Princeton, University of Tokyo and Fraunhofer, just to name a few. Pandžić emphasised that they only started to grow significantly when Autolivov Veoneer became a client.

"Two years ago, they asked us if we could make up a team of 15 to 20 people who would work just for them, which was a great step forward for us as there were so many of us at that time. But for us, it was a step further in our own transformation, and today it's a part of our business,'' Pandžić added.

Pandžić also stated that the company produces 50 percent of the seatbelt buckles for cars all over the world.

The company is now developing a system where the car recognises the driver, as well as others in the vehicle. In Zagreb, in cooperation with teams from Sweden, the company is developing intelligent vehicle systems that will stop the car should it come into close contact with a human or another vehicle, explained Pandžić.

"It wasn't easy to arrive to this position, where today we've got clients who use our systems with robots, because if you've lived all your life at the academy like us, then you first have to reconcile with having no idea what the market actually looks like, who those customers really are, and which business models really work,'' added Pandžić.

Visage Technologies ''wandered around'' for the first six to seven years until it found a proper product-market fit. The same happened when in 2016 they expanded their business into the car industry. Deloitte announced last year that they grew by a massive 1600 percent to 8.5 million Swedish krona. According to Business Croatia's data, Visage recently increased its revenue from 2.9 million kuna to 9.9 million kuna last year, and enjoyed a net profit of 546.500 kuna.

"We're cooperating with the academy all the time, because this is important for digital transformation. From the very beginning, Visage has been in cooperation with FER through a scientific-research project,'' concluded Igor Pandžić.

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Click here for the original article by Bernard Ivezic for Poslovni Dnevnik

It tends to happen at this time of year, at least it has over the last few, as the bura and the jugo winds beat the Dalmatian coast on a regular basis, bringing in all sorts of bizarre things on the strong currents to the Dalmatian coastline. It isn't unusual for innocent citizens simply taking a walk around the shoreline stumble upon rather large quantities of marijuana and other very drowned drugs.

Nobody is ever quite sure where the marijuana has really come from, and the assumption is usually that these illegal packages have simply ''lost their way'' on a journey between either Albania and Montenegro on their way to Italy, but alas, the phenomenon continues to begin to occur around November time.

As Morski writes on the 4th of November, 2018, citizens of Mljet and Orebic reported the rather surprising discovery of as much as 156 kilograms of marijuana floating in the sea. The now very wet packages of marijuana were picked up by the Dubrovnik-Neretva police at Orebić, Blato on Korčula, and on the island of Mljet on the basis of various reports from the residents of the aforementioned areas, both on the Dalmatian mainland and on nearby islands.

As is usually the case with such packages, the general assumption of the police is that the boxes of marijuana were initially on their way from either Albania or Montenegro towards their final destination of Italy, where they fell from their vessel and ended up being swept along to the Croatian coast by the current.

This is otherwise a very common sea route for drug smugglers, and the winds that typically hit the Croatian coast at this time of year can typically end up bringing these lost packages to the Croatian coast, according to a report from Dubrovacki Dnevnik.

An investigation is now being conducted to try to work out exactly where, and from whom, the drugs came from, as has been stated from the competent police administration, who thanked the citizens of the aforementioned locations for alerting them to the drug packages. The police have also asked for anyone else who comes across suspicious packages in the sea or washed up on the shore to alert them.

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The trends appear to show that people in Croatia are borrowing more and more credit, mainly for housing and cash loans.

The monthly value of newly approved loans in the housing sector shows greater dynamics in terms of the credit activity of banks in this sector when compared to last year, as has been reported from the Croatian Chamber of Commerce (HGK).

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 3rd of November, 2018, in the first nine months of 2018, when looked at in the sense of a year-on-year comparison, the gross value of newly approved loans in this sector was 2.9 percent higher.

The gross value of newly approved loans at an annual level during 2018's first nine months increased only in the housing sector and in loans for other purposes, while the value of newly approved revolving loans, overdrafts, credit from credit cards and consumer credits was lower than in it was during the same period last year.

The largest value of credit institution credit to the population in kuna this year is for credit on credit cards and for overdrafts on transaction accounts. Of the newly approved kuna loans with currency clauses, the highest value appears to be in regard to loans for other purposes, followed by housing loans. This can typically be looked at as housing and cash loans.

In line with the dynamics of the growth of new loans, at the end of September this year, the value of the household sector's debt increased by 3.9 percent to 122.6 billion kuna (up from December 2015). The household sector is currently the most heavily dependent on housing loans (43.2 percent of total debt) and non-purpose loans (37 percent of total debt).

The annual growth rate of total household loans has been being realised for as many as thirteen consecutive months, and interest rates on loans in this sector are at record low levels and appear to be continuing to move downward. As a result, interest rates on ''pure'' kuna loans in some sectors fell below kuna loans with a currency clause. This is the case with revolving loans and, for the very first time, with housing loans.

For the first few months, the population has been more borrowing kuna loans than kuna loans with currency clauses. The upcoming period is expected to continue the dynamics of this type of credit activity in banks towards the population in the context of real wage growth and employment.

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The weather in Croatia and along the Adriatic can be a little bit, well, all over the place. The calm, deep blue sea is a distant memory on some days as Mother Nature whips up the waves in a way many tourists who are dedicated to visiting only during the summer months have never seen or imagined possible in Croatia. 

We recently reported on the highest waves being recorded since 2004 near Palagruža, Croatia's most remote lighthouse island. We also touched on the story of two surfers who must have had someone watching over them as they somehow managed to survive the wild Adriatic near Umag in Istria, one of them, a Slovenian national, miraculously surviving 24 hours at sea and arriving to call for help at a cafe in Trieste, Italy.

It seems the records just keep being broken by the waves as yet more are recorded during this typically unstable period for the weather in Croatia, the highest wave having been recorded near Sveti Andrija near Dubrovnik.

As Morski writes on the 1st of November, 2018, the Croatian Hydrographic Institute has recorded yet more record waves at their stations in Rovinj, Split, Ploče, and Dubrovnik. The highest, as mentioned, was recorded near the islet of Sv. Andrija, with a peak height of 9.03 metres. While it might appear out of the ordinary at first, such a huge wave being measured near this islet is not that unusual of a phenomenon for the extreme south of Dalmatia. Back in 1988, a wave actually covered the height of the crane that was once place there, once again at an impressive height of eleven metres.

The nine-metre elevated concrete bridges typical of such lighthouse islets were met with waves of exactly that height on several occasions. In one case, according to the testimony of one lighthouse keeper, a boat was lifted up by the sea before being totally destroyed.

These waves are otherwise the highest waves of the last decade, with the Croatian Hydrographic Institute reporting that the maximum wave height measured in Rovinj was eight metres, Split measured a wave of over 3 metres in height, and the station in Dubrovnik (near the islet of Sveti Andrija), the maximum recorded wave height was 9.03 metres.

The aforementioned institute stated that all of this collected and processed data will contribute to increasing the overall degree of safety of navigation in these areas, as well as lead to the creation of updated safety recommendations. This information provides the preconditions for the safe transport of people and goods to the Croatian part of the Adriatic, the management of the sea and underwater resources, and to the defense and the preservation of the environment.

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