The Croatian Chamber of Economy’s office in Brussels organized a presentation of Croatian investment potentials for Belgian entrepreneurs in light of Croatia’s upcoming accession to the European Union in a few days.
The head of the Brussels office, Dragica Martinović, briefly presented data about Croatia and the economic relations between the two countries, followed by the usual enumeration of data and advantages of investing in Croatia, with one novelty – Croatia will now offer additional benefits to investors as an EU member, primarily in the form of unhindered distribution of goods in the single market. Silva Stipić Kobali, the director of the Investment Promotion Center at the Chamber, cited Croatia’s geographical position and modern infrastructure as some of the main advantages compared to other investment destinations and offered tourism, industry, energy production, and agriculture as the most attractive sectors for investment.
Zdenko Lucić, the director of the investment sector at the Agency for Investments and Competitiveness, added the good language skills of the workforce and the government’s commitment to promoting investment, which he supported with data on seven major projects that have been initiated (worth 433 million euros) out of a total of 18 that are being ‘unblocked’ (totaling 1.2 billion euros) and the expected adoption of the Law on Strategic Investments. He also detailed the incentive system, among which tax incentives stand out depending on the amount of investment and the number of jobs created (150 thousand euros, one million, and three million euros, respectively for 5, 10, and 15 employees), which can be calculated using the incentive calculator on the Agency’s website that allows interested investors to calculate available incentives. A significant shift compared to the usual discussions about investing in Croatia was the statement by Theo Nys, the CFO of the Belgian BMT group, that the company has not had any problems in Croatia since it purchased the company ‘Straža-alatnica’ in Humu na Sutli in 1997 and that they are extremely satisfied with their experience in Croatia so far. As advantages that attracted this investor to Croatia, he mentioned incentives, orientation towards the European Union, willingness to improve, proficiency in Eastern European languages, an important market for BMT, skilled and inexpensive labor, and good access to Eastern European markets.
