ZAGREB, September 12, 2018 – Starting a business in Croatia could be simpler, faster and easier as of 2019 because a digital platform will be introduced to combine the different processes and institutions that are currently involved in the process of starting a business, a closing conference on a project designed to improve the business climate, carried out by the World Bank, the European Commission and Croatian partners, heard in Zagreb on Tuesday.
The project, designed to lay foundations for a modern system of starting a business in Croatia, was implemented over the past year and a half by the World Bank and the Ministry of Economy, Entrepreneurship and Crafts, with the support of the EC and a number of Croatian institutions in charge of processes related to starting and registering a business, including the Financial Agency (FINA), which has been in charge of the project management and maintenance of the new digital system.
The platform will include websites and an application to be used by future business people in finding more easily and in one place all information necessary to set up a business.
This will not lead to abolishing the institutions and agencies that have been in charge of those processes so far, but would rather facilitate the relevant procedures, said a state secretary at the Economy, Entrepreneurship and Crafts Ministry, Nataša Mikuš Žigman. Access to the platform and application will be free of charge but costs such as those related to public notaries will still have to be paid, she said.
“The project was designed to improve the business climate in Croatia and encourage the launching of businesses because the ease of setting up a business, which currently depends on a number of institutions, is one of the indicators of the business climate. In this project we analysed those institutions’ data, and the World Bank gave recommendations on how to make the process simpler and faster. This will reduce the number of the necessary procedures while the web application will make it possible to register a company faster and in one place. We want the entire procedure to be reduced to two steps,” said Mikuš Žigman.
She said that given the online platform, the project would facilitate communication between the relevant institutions, and future entrepreneurs would no longer have to send the same information to different addresses.
“This could result in additional economic growth, new businesses, notably small and medium ones, and new employment, as well as more investments. In the Doing Business report for 2018, Croatia has already gone eight places up in terms of starting a business, to 87th place among 190 countries. This project is expected to further improve those indicators,” Mikuš Žigman said, adding that for the time being the project did not include a model to facilitate the closing of a business, which was something that would be worked on in the future.
Project manager Andreja Marušić of the World Bank said that the project was in fact one of the reforms that could help Croatia draw closer to the best practices in the world and the EU.
