ZAGREB, 4 Jan 2022 - As of Tuesday, two electric taxis will be providing taxi services in Karlovac, their purchase by the Ambassador company having been co-financed with HRK 70,000 (approx. €9,300) per car by the Environment and Energy Efficiency Fund.

The two Volkswagen vehicles each cost HRK 300,000 (€40,000) and Ante Čerkez of the Auto Hrvatska car dealer said electric cars accounted for 3% of all car purchases in 2021, three times more than in 2020.

Čerkez expects the sale of electric and hybrid cars to rise significantly due to the need to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

"Electric car sales in Karlovac are 25% higher than the national average," said Čerkez.

Ambassador CEO Duško Gušić said the company had opted for electric cars owing to financial incentives from the state and client expectations. He noted that thanks to the city administration, the electric taxis would be charged for free.

The company plans to buy three more electric vehicles with the support of state subsidies this summer, he said.

Karlovac Mayor Damir Mandić said that in 2020 the city invested around HRK 200,000 (€27,000) to install seven charging stations, available for free to anyone with an electric car.

He announced that the city public transportation would go green as well, calling on other providers of taxi services in the city to opt for electric cars and promising free charging of their vehicles at the city-owned charging stations for them as well, until further notice.

For more, check out our dedicated business section.

Minister Darko Horvat said that all forty required parameters for the investment have now been satisfied and that the government had put together a proper offer. On Wednesday, the Croatian Government will open talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel on the arrival of Volkswagen in Croatia.

As Poslovni Dnevnik/Bernard Ivezic writes on the 20th of November, 2019, this information was announced by Economy Minister Darko Horvat at the HUP conference "Industry 4.0 - Opportunity and/or Challenge" held on Tuesday in Varaždin.

Although just three weeks ago, VW production chief Andreas Tostmann told Reuters that they were not looking for an alternative location for their new one and a half million euro factory, Horvat claims that the government has prepared a bid for a German investor, and that it is determined to try to get a positive decision for this investment to be realised here in the Republic of Croatia. Horvat states that the government has received and processed all of Volkswagen's management requirements and even found three potential locations for the plant.

"The talks are beginning tomorrow (today, op.a.) with Ms. Merkel about VW realising its investment here in Croatia, The government has put together a bid for VW and found three locations where there are one million square metres of land, and all of the other conditions, which regard 40 parameters, are ready as were requested in order to realise that investment,'' Horvat said.

He added that there were three potential locations for the factory: Varaždin, Ivanić-Grad and Dugo Selo. In no other part of Croatia have they found so much available land ready for investment combined with all of the other conditions, such as human and educational capacity and development plans for twenty years.

"We want to brand Croatia as a destination of excellence and we'll either create such opportunities ourselves or we'll just remain the domain of selling the sun, the sea or healthy food, although we're aware that a good deal of our food is actually imported," Horvat says.

The minister said the Croatian Government was also working on several other things to steer Croatia in the direction of Industry 4.0. He confirmed that talks on the new Labour Law had now begun at the Ministry. The new law, he explains, should acknowledge the reality that a framework for project-oriented jobs must be created.

"Ultimately, we have to allow someone from abroad to be able to come to Croatia to work for two or three years, do their job and then move on, because this is legal migration that is happening in our neighbouring countries and this is a trend that would help us out too," Horvat noted.

He added that changes were also being made to the Investment Promotion Act. It would allow that the condition for obtaining benefits under this law need not be the hiring of new people. In addition, the status of unused state property will be redefined, which will particularly benefit tourism.

However, the minister says they want the positive effects of the bill to be specifically targeted at industry.

"Next week, we're launching a new IRI tender, the so-called IRI2, which will for the first time enable large companies with more than 250 employees to compete for funds, and thus have access to 770 million kuna in capital, and the government is ready take it a step further next year and do an IRI 3 contest,'' says Horvat.

He emphasised the fact that there are around 400 large companies operating here in Croatia, which have the highest capacity to absorb R&D funds and that they're expected to make the greatest economic shifts from using these funds. In addition, the Ministry of the Economy expects that Ernst & Young's consultancy will help Croatia to complete the National Artificial Intelligence Development Program by the end of the year.

The ministry also expects the completion of the Centre for Innovation, Advanced Technology and Skill Development, which should be operational soon. Additionally, Minister Horvat announced the first concrete move this Friday.

"Today, we're going to test the new system out internally, and on Friday, everyone in Croatia will be able to open obrts, j.d.o.o.'s and d.o.o.'s from their living rooms through the Start application, through which eight institutions are networked, including HZMO and HZZO and banks, so you'll be able to immediately open a bank account,'' Horvat concluded.

Make sure to follow our dedicated business page for much more.

Asked how he assesses Croatia's prospects of attracting a large investment, especially important because what is in question is a propulsive industry, Croatian entrepreneur Branko Roglić emphasised the fact that it depends solely on whether or not Croatia will do everything necessary to actually set itself apart and as such be selected for this project.

As Suzana Varosanec/Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 22nd of October, 2019, Mate Rimac is a great Croatian innovator, and I'm 100 percent sure that thanks to his involvement and business activities in the field of electric cars, which is growing by 10 percent per year, has drawn the attention of global players from the automotive industry to the possibility of investing and launching new projects in Croatia.

This was stated by the respected Croatian entrepreneur Branko Roglić, the owner of Orbic, which operates in twenty countries and employs more than 8,000 workers, generating more than two billion euros in revenue. As one of the founders of the Croatian Employers Association (HUP), as well as an active member and Chairman of the Supervisory Board, Roglić welcomes Rimac's membership within HUP.

"I believe that Rimac, by with his results in the production of electric cars, contributes to the possibility of Croatia becoming a place where the big car industries can realise their business plans,'' stated Roglić encouragingly.

The understandable reaction, which is more or less HUP's rightul congratulations to Croatia's beloved entrepreneur Mate Rimac on his merits, comes after he just confirmed that a recent meeting attended by Porsche (a member of the VW Group) and Hyundai leaders in Zagreb resulted in the opening of a communication channel between the Croatian Government and some of the big players in the automotive industry. Something hardly imaginable without the likes of Mate Rimac's involvement.

More astonishing yet, this is an important complement to the latest information from the Ministry of the Economy regarding the confirmation of Croatia's involvement in a major tender for Volkswagen's new factory.

The German car giant, as was initially reported by Večernji list, considers Croatia as its potential location for the planned relocation of Passat and Škoda Superb's production in 2022, in a brand new plant that would produce 300,000 vehicles a year and employ 4,000 people, while existing plants in Germany and the Czech Republic would see the production of electric cars organised.

While the majority of us are likely surprised that any sort of major investment would focus on Croatia, the inclusion of Croatia is no surprise to Roglić, who simply says that everything depends on the country's true willingness to be chosen.

"The government has to do literally everything possible to attract a strong German investor in an industry that is creating big jobs, high levels of investment and dictating new technological developments. This means that we should follow the recipe of Slovakia, known for its administration having opened the so-called ''big door'' precisely to the automotive industry before it entered the EU: it provided it with construction sites that were granted free of charge, as well as the entire infrastructure, and introduced a tax exemption over a period of time. Our government should follow in those steps, because Croatia must not miss this chance,'' Roglić warned.

Make sure to follow our dedicated business page for much more.