Virovitica is by far one of Croatia's most overlooked cities. Located what feels like a world away from the hustle and bustle of desirable Dalmatia and the funk of the capital city, not far from the Hungarian border, this quiet continental Croatian city is like a step back in time, with all but its highly advanced budget for next year, it seems.

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 21st of November, 2018, Virovitica will have the largest budget in its entire history in 2019, it adds up to about 286,175,000 kuna, an amount the city councillors adopted at their fifteenth regular session.

At the session of the city council, it was stated that in relation to last year, Virovitica's budget plan had increased by a considerable 13 percent, mainly due to large and significant urban projects that will be co-financed by European Union funds and the state budget itself. In addition to providing funds for the material expenses and the investment maintenance costs, the City of Virovitica expects continued work on projects which have already begun being worked on, as well as some brand new investments.

Thus, the city's 2019 budget includes funds to continue the construction of the Centre for Education and Rehabilitation and three-part school sports hall in the amount of 27,150,000 kuna and the reconstruction of the City Park and Castle Pejačević in the amount of 28,200,000 kuna. There are two projects which mainly involve the energetic restoration of buildings, including the "Cvrčak" kindergarten and the Ivana Brlić-Mažuranić primary school, both in the amount of 1.620.000 kuna, according to a report from Glas Slavonije.

In addition, the City of Virovitica has plans for a few totally new investments, including the construction of a sports and recreation centre in Virovitica - a complex which will be built on the site of some former barracks, worth 26,300,000 kuna, an increase in the overall energy efficiency of public lighting worth 14,350,000 kuna, and the energetic renovation of various buildings, a cultural centre, and the reneal of the of the sport community building, worth a massive 16,330,000 kuna.

In addition to all of the aforementioned, there are also plans for several more projects, including the construction of communal infrastructure, rearranging the traffic zone around the Ivana Brlić-Mažuranić primary school, road construction in certain areas, car park construction, and other infrastructure projects described in more detail in Virovitica's construction program for 2019.

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Whether it be big or small, investment in Croatia with the help of European Union funds continues to keep the country's offer competitive.

As Morski writes on the 17th of November, 2018, in one port area in Primorje-Gorski Kotar County, the biggest investment cycle so far has begun. ​​Of the massive 150 million kuna investment, as much as 60 million kuna are the projects of the County Port Authority of Crikvenica, and works in Jadranovo, Crikvenica and Selce will begin next week, according to HRT Radio Rijeka.

The project's contractors are Crikvenica Construction and Rijeka BSK Commerce. The completion of the port extension has been announced in Crikvenica for eighteen months time, that in Selce will be done in five years, and in Jadranovo, the expected time limit is one year, with the overall desire for it to be completed before next summer.

Speaking generally, investment in Croatia is a hugely important step in continually improving the country's already rich offer, and Primorje-Gorski Kotar County has not launched such a large investment cycle in its coastal area ever, County Prefect Zlatko Komadin said. This year, 40 million kuna's worth of works began, while the rest of the investment cycle is expected to reach 150 million kuna in the next two years. Along the coast in the Crikvenica area, there also will be works on the ports of Unije, Susak, and Cres. The views of places and cities are changing, which is already evident in Njivice (Krk) and in Novi Vinodolski, and such changes will soon also be seen in Crikvenica, noted the prefect. Komadina also pointed out that they have withdrawn most possible European Union incentives for the upcoming works.

Nada Milošević stressed that as much as 101 million kuna is coming from EU funds. "The Ministry's contingency has been extended until February the 29th next year, so we're planning to run two more projects in addition to the Crikvenica project, involving Rab and Purpurela ports, part of the fishing port and the extension of the Baška port," said Milošević.

The director of ŽLU Crikvenica, Mario Kružić, announced that in Crikvenica, the existing pier will be extended by another sixty metres, and a new western breakwater of 130 metres in length will be built to protect the port from waves. Two existing gates will be built in Selce on Polača and Stari mul, which will be 100 metres longer. In Jadranovo, the plans are the construction of a new promenade of about 400 metres in length, and in Perčin port, the communal berths will be renovated, and in the concessioned area, nautical berths will be constructed. The plan also boasts an 80-metre deep breakwater pontoon, as well as the construction of two piers at lengths of sixty metres.

Work should begin next week, and Crikvenica's administration has asked tourists and citizens alike for their patience, as heavy machinery will be moving through the city streets.

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Click here for the original article by Neva Funcic for HRT Radio Rijeka

As Sergej Novosel Vuckovic/Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 8th of November, 2018, Zagreb has been chosen in a group of 40 cities across Europe as the seat of the new centre for software in 40 cities of Europe, and has also entered the final six along with Sofia, Bucharest, Belgrade, Madrid, and Lisbon.

Croatian IT experts have thus had a brand new and welcome opportunity to stay in their home country created for them.

The Adcubum company from Switzerland came to Zagreb where it has just opened its Software Solutions Development Centre. The investment is worth 12 million euro over a three year period, as was explained by the director of the Croatian branch of the company, Bojan Poljičak.

"This is a Swiss greenfield investment, related to the development of a service centre for software development. These are high value added services, focused on development and exports,'' stated Poljičak, who was also once the director of Adecco Croatia. Adcubum has otherwise been in existence for twenty years, and has been active in Austria and Germany as well as at home in its parent country of Switzerland, specialising in business information technology solutions for insurance companies. There are 350 employees in total, and in Zagreb there are now seven more.

By the end of this year, there will be ten workers, and what is particularly stimulating for domestic experts is the announcement that they plan to employ 40 people each year over the next five years in order to reach a total of 200 employees in Croatia by the end of 2023.

"Profiles that are of interest to us are engineers for software development. We're very satisfied with the level of knowledge and skills of the existing candidates and at the beginning, we encountered a good level of interest. Just like it is in other countries, the main challenge will be to find, attract, and retain a sufficient number of suitable candidates, but we're positive about it and we expect that we'll be able to bring our plans to fruition,'' explained Poljičak. The main product of Adcubum, which will be done in Zagreb, is SYRIUS, a comprehensive software solution developed specifically for the business of an insurer.

"It allows them to deal with almost all of their processes within that solution and to adapt it, on the other hand, to their business specificities through the parametrisation and flexibility of the software solution," said Adcubum's Croatian affiliate director, noting that their goal in the Croatian capital is to increase additional human resources for further SYRIUS development.

"We're planning to form teams that will work on new software products in the application area called ''front end'', but also processing and analytics in the field of big data,'' Poljičak pointed out.

Just how did the Croatian capital manage to bypass the competition and be of such attraction to the Swiss company?

"They considered the prospects for the availability of IT professionals of high professionalism, foreign language knowledge, cultural similarities, and support from state institutions such as the Investment and Competitiveness Agency," Poljičak revealed.

"We want to use a very good ratio of expertise, professionalism, flexibility, and teamwork that candidates and potential employees have here in Croatia. We also want to provide our employees with work experience with colleagues and clients in Switzerland and Germany - as well as transfer part of our knowledge and our ways of working with colleagues in these countries,'' Bojan Poljičak concluded.

Adcubum's Chief Technology Officer Walter Meister and Swiss Ambassador to Croatia Emilia Georgieva were also at the opening of the Zagreb centre, pointing out that the Croatian branch was a result of the company's accelerated development due to an increased demand for services, expressing hope that this investment would strengthen Switzerland's status in the top ten foreign investors in the Republic of Croatia.

According to CNB/HNB (Croatian National Bank) data, direct Swiss investments in Croatia in 2016 amounted to a huge 6.2 million euro. In the first two quarters of this year, about 5.6 million of Swiss capital entered Croatia, and a total of about 42.4 million euro has been invested in the country since as far back as 1993.

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Click here for the original article by Sergej Novosel Vuckovic for Poslovni Dnevnik

Doing business in Croatia is always a hot topic, especially when it comes to listing the long list of negative experiences people have endured and hoops they have had to jump through in order to get a basic task done. While this isn't always the case, it's certainly the rule more than it is the exception, but just when will Croatia learn that the ease of doing business is far more likely to attract potential investors than natural beauty is?

As Ana Blaskovic/Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 1st of November, 2018, not much has come from the grandiose announcements made by Andrej Plenković earlier this year that 2018 will be the year of reforms for Croatia. 

Many people will simply make such a statement for the sake of making it, to keep up the tradition of disliking politicians and the political system, or simply as a protest against the current prime minister, but despite all of the above, this isn't a malignant interpretation, but a concerning one stated on the Doing Business World Bank scale. Croatia held 51st place last year when it came to the ease of doing business, but in 2018, Croatia returned to 58th place among 190 countries across the world.

The year of reforms indeed.

Discussions about methodology and criteria when it comes to doing business in Croatia can of course be debated and argued over, but they are the same for everyone and whatever conclusion one may arrive to, ultimately, nothing can change the fact that the number on the aforementioned scale is an unfavouravle one, and such scales are a very important tool when it comes to investors deciding whether or not to bring their capital, their skills and know-how, and open jobs here in Croatia, or simply to go somewhere else. The average start-up time for doing business in Croatia is a rather uninspiring 22.5 days, in neighbouring Serbia it is typically 5.5 days, and in Slovenia, it usually takes 8 days.

These figures perfectly illustrate the two areas that remain ''cancerous'' to the system and hinder any progress - the judiciary and of course, the public administration. Although a company's name can be electronically registered at a commercial court, that same court needs an average of two entire weeks just to issue a piece of paper confirming it, and without them and their pieces of paper, it's impossible to open a company bank account or design and make a company stamp.

The worst of the worst in this situation appears to relate to construction licenses (159th place in the world) where instead of simplification, four new procedures have conveniently been added, so that the process lasts for an utterly ridiculpus 146 days. In a rather embarrassing comparison, Serbia is at 11th place with a 40-day shorter process.

There is a proverbial sea, no, ocean, of such examples and the naked truth is simple yet brutal: Croatia is definitely going in the right direction and is making a lot of progress, but other countries are simply doing much more.

It's now high time that the Croatian Government realised that Croatia is not above any other country, and that investments don't come knocking at the door because of natural beauty, warm weather and a nice beach or two, but owing to the ease of doing business, which should be any normal country's top priority.

With investors frequently having nothing but complaints, red tape taking an insane amount of time to get through and money simply being lost in the ''Bermuda Triangle'' that is Croatia, all while trying to make a stamp as if we've taken a trip back to the 20th century, the question is - when will the penny finally drop?

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Click here for the original article by Ana Blaskovic for Poslovni Dnevnik

HEP's Distribution System Operator (ODS) plans for investing in Croatia include more than 60 million kuna by 2021 in Hvar alone.

As Darko Bicak/Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 27th of October, 2018, in the period between 2018 to 2021, HEP Group will be investing in Croatia almost six billion kuna in the power grid throughout Croatia, as was recently announced in Stari Grad, Hvar.

HEP has pointed out that by investing in Croatia such a large sum, of which approximately four billion kuna will be poured into distribution and more than 1.8 billion kuna into the transmission network, HEP will create the proper preconditions for the further development of the Croatian economy, the country's tourism, and the security of the supply of both existing and future consumers throughout Croatia.

In the coastal areas and islands alone, HEP intends to invest about 1.2 billion kuna by 2021, this cash injection will directly contribute to the security of existing and future customers, have a significant impact on the development of tourism and the economy, and will also aid in the intended creation of a better quality of life and to the population survival of the country's many islands.

Of this huge amount, almost one billion kuna will be spent on the country's power grid, on renewable energy sources, and on more fueling stations for electric vehicles on the Adriatic.

HEP has emphasised that Croatian companies are very much involved in the implementation of the aforementioned large investments, and that these investments have been confirmed to be one of the most important drivers of the Croatian economy. The HEP-Operator Distribution System (HEP ODS) is planning to invest as much as 800 million kuna in the distribution network in the country's coastal areas in the period between 2019 and 2021, while over the coming decade, the plan is to invest a massive total of two billion kuna.

Investing in Croatia - and its islands

During the same period, HEP ODS plans to lay down 33 kilometres of submarine cables at a cost of about 43 million kuna, while for the period between 2022-2028, they plan to lay down 124 kilometres of submarine cables, totaling about 161 million kuna, or about 200 million kuna in the next 10 years.

An additional 339 million kuna will be invested by the Croatian Transmission System Operator (HOPS) by 2021, in exchange for high voltage submarine cables. In the Dalmatian network alone in 2018, HEP invested a massive 238 million kuna, and a total of about 500 million kuna was invested in the system of the entire coast.

HEP ODS plans to invest more than 60 million kuna into Hvar alone by 2021. These investments will include the reconstruction of TS Stari Grad, and then the reconstruction of the network on the southeastern part of the island with 15 TSs. The most significant investment of 40 million kuna will go to the construction of TS Hvar. In addition, the laying of the Podgorica submarine cable will also take place, at a value of 12 million kuna.

 Click here for the original article by Darko Bicak for Poslovni Dnevnik

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