November the 22nd, 2022 - The share of Croatian women who started their own businesses last year is incredibly encouraging, with the number of companies with women at the helm on the up.

As Poslovni Dnevnik/Suzana Varosanec writes, last year, a group which is made up of 47,041 enterprises had at least one woman on the Management Board or Supervisory Board. Croatian women held 95,777 functions, of which 51,535 were management functions, while in 1,846 cases women held supervisory functions (members of the Supervisory Board), and in 42,396 cases - they appeared as company founders. The above was shown in Fina's recent analysis that looked into the results of the aforementioned group's operations according to GFI data for the years 2019-2021.

"Back in 2021, the observed group of enterprises held capital in the amount of 161.6 billion kuna and had total assets in the amount of 752.5 billion kuna. Compared to 2019, the number of companies in the observed group increased by 12.2%, their total income increased by 11.7%, their total expenses by 11.0%, their profit for that period by 23.5%, their losses for that period by 14.0%, while the number of employees decreased by 0.6% in 2021," stated Fina's analysis, and as we know, Fina itself is strongly represented with a high proportion of women employed in managerial positions.

Out of a total of 291 employees working in management positions within Fina (management, director of sectors and other organisational units), 210 were Croatian women, which makes up a share of 72%.

According to the data from the processed GFI for the year 2021, 473,821 employees were employed in this group, and those companies achieved 471.5 billion kuna in total revenue, a period profit of 31.4 billion kuna, a loss of 6.9 billion kuna, and an impressive net profit in the amount of 24.4 billion kuna kuna.

The largest total revenues (73.0%), profit for the period (69.6%), and loss for the period (75.8%) were achieved by limited liability companies. In second place came joint-stock companies with a share in total revenues of 22.9%.

The largest number of enterprises of this group operated in the City of Zagreb (34.8%) and Split-Dalmatia County (10.3%). Companies of this group in the City of Zagreb employed 44.4% of the total employees and achieved 53.9% of total income, 57.4% of profit for the period and 53.3% of loss for the period. Analysis by activity shows that the largest number of enterprises within this group operated in professional, scientific and technical activities (20.7%) and wholesale and retail trade (19.8%). The largest number of employees was in the processing industry (25.0%) and wholesale and retail trade (19.3%). The largest total income was achieved by companies from wholesale and retail trade (29.8%), and the highest profit of the period was achieved within the processing industry (26.7%).

"The largest number of companies of this group (73.3%) operated in the form of limited liability companies (d.o.o.), which employed as many as 73.2% of the employees of the observed group. In second place in terms of representation came simple limited liability companies (j.d.o.o.) with 20.1% (they employed only 3.5% of the employees of the observed group), while enterprises with other forms of organisation occupy less than 3.0%.

Natural persons engaged in registered activities (crafts, freelance professions and OPGs) in the observed group participated with a relatively small percentage (2.8% in terms of the number of enterprises, 1.0% in terms of total income) which is to be expected because most of these entities are income tax payers, not profit tax payers," Fina's analysis stated.

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