Excluding the risk of refinancing external debt, Croatia has a stable situation and can relatively well navigate through the global financial crisis, but it is difficult to determine when the negative sentiment will turn, said Josip Galinec, director of the consulting firm To One, today.
At the presentation of the publication of the magazine Banka and the company To One "Investment Funds", of which he is the editor-in-chief, Galinec also stated that the Croatian situation could be significantly different from the global one, as our financial sector is incomparably stronger and more stable than some systems in the region, as well as in the world. Croatian banks are well capitalized and have high liquidity, but that capital is being "held tight" by the banks, waiting for a change in market sentiment, or for some trend of stability to return that capital to the market, Galinec said.
The CEO of Erste Securities, Marin Hrešić, also presented the analysts’ estimate from that firm that unstable movements in the market can still be expected in the upcoming period, but without dramatic declines. However, he added, foreign analysts expect that the markets in this region will lag somewhat behind more developed markets in returning to pre-crisis levels. When asked which sectors are ‘safe’ for investment during a crisis, the participants in the publication presentation emphasized that this crisis has shown that the old rules for surviving a crisis no longer apply, as there is great uncertainty about what demand for any goods or services will look like, leading to stagnation in both trade and a number of production sectors.
