Finance Minister Slavko Linić, appearing on the Croatian Radio show Business Week, responded to the criticisms of the Governor of the Croatian National Bank, Boris Vujčić, that this Government is also implementing a spent model of economic policy that cannot pull the country out of the crisis.
Although everything depends on the last quarter, it is already clear that there will be no growth. Linić assumes that ‘the growth rate will most likely be negative; it is just a question of whether it will be below 1 or above 1.’ We still have a deficit of 10 billion kuna or over 3.2 percent of GDP. Even our forecasts for growth through state investments have not yielded much result. When we talk about growth in private sector investments, we have nothing against it, but as you can see – we have no interest in loans, Linić stated.
State company investments have been lacking, and construction has not managed to get going despite efforts. In this sense, we expect budget changes, but there will be no real rebalancing. Some expenditures for employees will need to be increased, while some investment expenditures will need to be reduced, added the finance minister.
