ZAGREB, May 15, 2018 - Finance Minister Zdravko Marić said on Tuesday the government was following the rise of fuel prices and working on a comprehensive tax package, of which excises are an integral part.

ZAGREB, April 26, 2018 - A comprehensive pension system reform with the statutory retirement age being gradually raised to 67, further easing of the tax burden and removal of administrative barriers, the continuation of the merger of hospitals and the establishment of a national clinical hospital for children as well as new legislation on public sector workers' salaries are some of the measures in a 130-page National Reform Programme approved by the Croatian government on Thursday.

ZAGREB, April 19, 2018 - A Croatian delegation, consisting of representatives of the Finance Ministry and the Croatian National Bank, will attend the spring meetings of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in Washington from 19 to 22 April, the Finance Ministry announced in a press release on Thursday.

ZAGREB, March 24, 2018 - Finance Minister Zdravko Marić said on Saturday that Standard & Poor's decision to raise Croatia's credit rating was very good news, but that at the same time it obliged Croatia, adding that final details about the financial restructuring of the road sector would be discussed by the government and that a convergence programme for the next three years would be adopted soon.

ZAGREB, March 21, 2018 - Without tax exemptions and differential tax rates, standard Value Added Tax could (VAT) be reduced to 20%, provided that the pension system and public healthcare are overhauled in parallel, the head of the Tax Administration Zdravko Zrinušić said at a working lunch with the Croatian Employers' Association (HUP) in Zagreb on Wednesday.

ZAGREB, February 21, 2018 - Finance Minister Zdravko Marić said on Wednesday that Croatia's financial system was stable and that everyone had the responsibility to keep it so, adding that not only the indebted Agrokor conglomerate, but all the financial market stakeholders, were important in that.

ZAGREB, February 14, 2018 - Finance Minister Zdravko Marić said on Wednesday that Croatia was above the global average in financial literacy but that there was a lot of room for progress given that more than half of citizens could not be defined as financially literate.

ZAGREB, January 26, 2018 - Finance Minister Zdravko Marić said on Friday that a year after the application of first tax reform measures, one could definitely say this was a step in the right direction and that enough room has been created for further tax, administrative and non-tax relief.

ZAGREB, January 24, 2018 - Finance Minister Zdravko Marić said on Wednesday he was happy that President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović had recognised good economic indicators and that for the government the idea was not only to have good indicators, but for those indicators to be visible in the living standard.

While the 25% general VAT rate will not be reduced anytime soon, the government now has the option of abolishing VAT altogether for one group of products or services.