In the new issue, find out everything about investing in private healthcare

The Croatian private healthcare sector is in a phase of development and growth, but it is far from a serious healthcare industry. Investors in the sector may see opportunities and possibilities, but the road to that is long and the stars must align. Despite everything, the sector is interesting to investors, not only to the fund industry, which sees an opportunity for an ‘invest & build’ strategy, but also to other investors: entrepreneurs in the food industry, IT professionals, economists, lawyers, and, of course, doctors. For them, investing in private healthcare is somewhat like a more conservative form of savings as the entire sector has proven to be quite resilient to crises in recent years. Ksenija Puškarić writes about investing in private healthcare where there are small returns but also risks in this week’s topic.

Rental prices are frozen, annual rent growth is limited, and a law on favorable rentals is being introduced. Such and similar headlines can increasingly be read in the media across Europe, hinting at a new trend of controlled rental prices for apartments. The issue of affordable housing is not a Croatian peculiarity, but a global problem. Younger generations can only dream of their property, and rental prices are slowly becoming unbearable. Croatia is therefore preparing a national housing policy plan, but this is by no means an easy task. The problem is, in fact, multi-layered, and possible solutions are diverse. Antonija Knežević writes about housing issues.

Ideological differences between the left and right are quite sharpening in the economic field, especially after the interview with Workers’ Front representative Katarina Peović published in Lider, where she, among other things, called for the abolition of private ownership, which echoed like a bomb in the Croatian media space and partially gave rise to this interview. Of course, with the state as an economic arbiter. In the meantime, the Government itself has pushed for even more state involvement by proposing a state model of financing companies by pouring five percent of capital from the second pension pillar into a risk fund (which is yet to be established) with a state guarantee. After all the pandemic-war experiences that have spread the influence of the state like a virus, a little more state has provoked a reaction from economic liberals, primarily consultant and frequent media analyst Andrej Grubišić, who responds, as he says, with empirical evidence that only capitalism allows for a better standard. Gordana Gelenčer spoke with Grubišić.

At the end of 2017, Prime Minister Andrej Plenković first introduced the term ‘hybrid warfare’ into the Croatian media space, stating that ‘only naive people can think that Croatia is not part of that process.’ Although considerable dust was raised afterward, especially from the opposition ranks, the Prime Minister never explained what was happening in Croatia at that time and what hybrid threats he was warning about. Since the fundamental goal of hybrid warfare is to create distrust in institutions and the state, it turns out that any such form of non-military attack on Croatia would be meaningless and unnecessary. Namely, distrust in institutions and the state is primarily caused by the Croatian institutions and the state themselves. Jozo Knez writes about hybrid threats.

A retail park is a type of shopping center whose main feature is that each unit within it is entered directly from the sidewalk. Some derisively call them ‘shopping centers for the poor’ – because they are much smaller in area and number of stores than shopping centers in large cities, and also because their tenants are mostly clothing and footwear retailers from the lower price range. Whatever they may be, they are opening at an unprecedented speed lately, as reported by Manuela Tašler.

In addition to the above, there is also a topic about tourism where we learn that Croatia had the most expensive camping service in Europe this year. You can also expect an interview with the dean of FOI, Marina Klačmer Čalopa, and a company story about Luka Ploče.

With the new issue comes a special supplement ‘The Power of JLRS‘.