ZAGREB, March 12, 2020 – It is essential to preserve jobs and business activity, and specific measures to help businesses affected by the coronavirus epidemic will be known in the coming days, reporters were told after a meeting at the Finance Ministry on Wednesday.
The meeting involved the ministers in charge of economic affairs and representatives of the business and banking sectors.
Finance Minister Zdravko Marić said after the meeting that it had been agreed that preserving jobs was of paramount importance. He recalled that it had taken a lot of time to restore the number of jobs to the level before the 2008 downturn.
Marić also emphasised the need to ensure the flow of goods, adding that specific measures in that regard would be discussed in the coming days. He said that the businesses were trying to maintain cash flow and their operations.
The finance minister said that the government was not considering increasing taxes, adding that pensions and wages paid from the budget were not questionable.
The Director-General of the Croatian Employers’ Association (HUP), Davor Majetić, said that employers met with sympathy on the part of the government and that they would analyse the situation together.
Since the measures are mostly aimed at preserving jobs, Majetić said that the employers would have to be provided with money for wages and liquidity.
More coronavirus news can be found in the Lifestyle section.
