The Parliament continued its work with a discussion on the report regarding the operations of companies of special state interest in the past year, writes hrt.hr. Out of 69 companies of special state interest, 29 achieved a total profit exceeding one billion kuna, while the remaining companies operated with a total loss of 4.5 billion kuna.
In these companies in 2009, there were 110,504 employees, and the state holds between 22 and 100 percent of the shares. The highest profit was achieved by Hrvatska elektroprivreda, amounting to 154.4 million kuna, followed by Plinacro and Končar Elektroindustrija group. The economic and financial crisis was also felt in the operations of these companies, emphasized State Secretary Zdravko Marić, adding that the Government has worked extensively on correcting anomalies, rationalizing operations, and increasing liquidity.
The number of employees in trading companies decreased by 1% last year, with the largest number of permanent employees being HEP, totaling 14,230 workers, HŽ 13,063, and Hrvatska pošta 11,259. Although they agree that state-owned enterprises have generally been poorly managed, the opposition and ruling parliamentary clubs presented opposing reasons. While the opposition warns that state-owned companies often served only as a source of money for the ruling parties, without any accountability for public funds, the ruling parties emphasize that the reasons for good or poor business results lie in the personal responsibility of those managing the companies. (www.hrt.hr)
