Cota: Reduce Administration and Free Up Space for Small and Medium Enterprises

Small and medium enterprises in Croatia face significant problems because the Croatian economy is not market-oriented, but rather dominated by monopolies and oligopolies – emphasized Boris Cota, advisor to President Ivo Josipović on the economy, at the round table ‘Small and Medium Enterprises’ held at the Faculty of Economics in Zagreb.

The event was organized by members of the student association Financial Club, and besides Boris Cota, thoughts on the future of small and medium enterprises were presented by the leader of the Tempus project Marina Dabić, director of the BICRO agency Dalibor Marjanović, vice president of the Croatian Chamber of Economy Vesna Trnokop – Tanta, and Ana Vincet Šepić from the Ministry of Economy, Labor and Entrepreneurship. In addition to the structural problems of the Croatian economy, the participants agreed that small and medium enterprises are plagued by administrative issues.

“Entrepreneurs encounter problems with the functioning of the rule of law and must fight daily against a forest of bureaucratic obstacles and cumbersome and inefficient administration,” said Cota, adding that the state must free up space for small and medium-sized enterprises by reducing administration. He also emphasized that Croatian politicians, regardless of their ideological background, often stress that the Croatian economy can be restructured in a short time, and that sending such messages is pure populism. The Croatian Chamber of Economy operates through centers and sectors of every branch of the economy, and its goal, says its vice president Vesna Trnokop Tanta, is to articulate the problems of the Croatian economy and present them to the government and the wider public.

“In these crisis times, we help small and medium companies to survive, and above all, we have focused on educating our members and promoting their products and services. In other words, we at the Croatian Chamber of Economy are trying through various programs to prepare small and medium companies for entering demanding markets,” said Trnokop – Tanta. For innovation to thrive, or for someone’s idea to become a commercial product, it is necessary to create a technological infrastructure, and as the director of the business and innovation center Bicro Dalibor Marjanović says, small and medium enterprises are the cheapest and most flexible for implementing ideas into commercial products.

The Ministry of Economy, Labor and Entrepreneurship has also provided various programs for small and medium enterprises, and as the head of the Entrepreneurship Department Ana Vincet Šepić says, the results of these efforts are visible in the entrepreneurial zones, of which there are about 300 in Croatia, as well as in the non-repayable funds for entrepreneurs that the Ministry allocates to small and medium companies every year. (Siniša Maksimović)