Majority Against Support for Investors for New Jobs

As many as 71 percent of participants in last week’s Lider’s Fight Club believe that attracting investors through support for new jobs is not a good idea.

Namely, following the new Investment Promotion Act, we ‘clashed’ Darko Lorencin, assistant to the Minister of Economy, and Ljubo Jurčić, a professor at the Faculty of Economics in Zagreb. While Lorencin believes that the measure whereby investors receive between 3,000 and 9,000 euros from the state for each newly created job (and up to 25 and 50 percent more for research and development) will attract a large number of investors to Croatia, Jurčić argues that it will be a loss for the state.
– I believe that this measure will achieve the opposite effect of what was intended, which is to attract industries that will increase industrial consumption. This measure will be maximally exploited by entrepreneurs while, on the other hand, the state will not achieve the expected results. Attracting investors is not a simple question and must be approached much more seriously, rather than just distributing money from the state budget – said Jurčić.

– It is a significant fact that when the investor completes the investment, they will carry out employment, and that the request for payment will only be submitted the following year, supported by the necessary documentation that the employment has actually been realized. In the meantime, in the first year, they will already start paying taxes and contributions on salaries, so the budget begins to generate revenue – defended his position Lorencin.

A FED commentator says: Encouraging investments in this way is self-deception. It reflects today’s formalism in our society, and thus in politics. It is easier to try to get some investments and jobs on paper through such administrative measures (no effort) than to make a greater effort to remove the real obstacles to investments, which include bureaucracy, judiciary, lower tax pressure, etc.

Join the new debate for and against the people’s bond.