400 New Companies Entered Bankruptcy

At the end of last year, due to non-fulfillment of obligations within 60 days, 1,875 Croatian companies were blocked. This increased the number of blocked legal entities on an annual basis by 400 companies or by 27 percent.

 Analysts say that a somewhat better picture of the actual state of our companies can be seen when observing them on an annual basis and the amounts of unpaid debts of legal entities. Namely, the amount of their due but unpaid obligations increased by only 2.5 percent over the year, to 590 million kuna. The largest part of the due obligations of blocked companies is owed to the state. Thus, of the total due obligations, 54 percent relates to unpaid tax obligations and by decisions of competent authorities on enforced collection, 36.6 percent is for unpaid obligations by court and other decisions, and only 9.4 percent are unpaid obligations for the payment of contributions from salaries and on salaries.

The latest data from FINA also indicate that nearly two-thirds of total unpaid obligations are concentrated in the manufacturing industry and trade. In terms of territorial distribution, the amounts of unpaid obligations of companies with continuous duration up to 60 days at the end of December last year were highest in the City of Zagreb (37.3 percent) and in the Split-Dalmatia County around 27 percent of total unpaid obligations. As for the duration of account blockages of legal entities, about 80 percent of blockages regularly relate to those lasting more than one year.

In the past year, the number of blocked individuals also increased by 14 percent. Namely, at the end of December last year, there were 1,994 individuals with blocked accounts of continuous duration up to 60 days, with the amount of their unpaid obligations being 27.5 percent lower than a year ago, amounting to 95 million kuna. A somewhat worse picture is obtained when observing the state of total unpaid, or continuous obligations of legal and physical persons older than 61 days and more in the last, say, half a year. Namely, these obligations increased by as much as 15 percent compared to the middle of last year, or by 2.3 billion kuna, and at the end of December 2008, they totaled 17.7 billion kuna, of which 13.8 billion is owed by legal entities and 3.9 billion kuna by individuals.  (Nikola Prskalo)