ZAGREB, January 1, 2020 – Ministries in charge of the economy have ambitious plans for 2020 including the construction and reconstruction of roads, railways and ports as well as improving macroeconomic indicators and the business climate which should lead to improvement of standard for citizens and facilitate doing business for entrepreneurs.
The Finance Ministry says that the 2020 budget is directed to further tax reliefs of 2.3 billion kuna for workers and entrepreneurs.
The ministry forecasts that intake of EU funds in 2020 will amount to 18.1 billion kuna and that the trend of decreasing the public debt to GDP ratio will continue.
Croatia is also due to enter the European Exchange Mechanism (ERM II) in the second half of the year.
The ministry forecasts a general government surplus of 0.2% of GDP in 2020, 0.4% in 2021 and 0.8% in 2022.
When it comes to the public debt, at the end of 2015 it amounted to 84.4% of GDP and at the end of 2019 it was reduced to 71.3% and by the end of 2020 it is expected to decline to 68%.
Favourable trends on the labour market are expected to continue and unemployment should continue to fall toward to 6.3% in 2022.
A set of legislative amendments entered into force on January 1 as part of the fourth round of tax reforms which among other things means that the non-taxable income threshold will be raised from 3,800 kuna to 4,000 kuna. Income taxes for young people under 25 years of age have been reduced by 100% while income taxes for those aged between 26 and 30 have been cut by 50%.
Economy, Entrepreneurship and Crafts Ministry plans to continue with reliefs for entrepreneurs and reducing or abolishing parafiscal levies.
An action plan is prepared to liberalise the services market by deregulating professions.
Amendments are expected to the legislation regulating working hours for stores to on Sunday, which are aimed at introducing non-working Sundays.
The ministry also plans to co-finance R&D projects for entrepreneurs through state subsidy schemes
Sea, Transport and Infrastructure Ministry underscores that 2020 will be marked with works to the railway network.
The current projects, which are underway, are estimated at 1.2 billion euro and during 2020 the Croatian Railways (HZ) passenger transport fleet will be upgraded with electric trains. These investments are set at 1.03 billion kuna. A project to improve the safety of railway/road level crossings is planned with the installation of equipment valued at 127.7 million kuna.
Several significant road construction projects have been announced including the construction of access roads to Pelješac Bridge with a total distance of 30.13 kilometres and valued HRK 990 million kuna as well as a new multimodal platform for the Split agglomeration including the towns of Solin, Stobreč, Dugi Rat and Omiš with a total investment value of 2.4 billion kuna.
Another significant project in road infrastructure is the completion of the first stage of the Istrian motorway with a tender for another tunnel through Učka Mountain.
Investments of more than 453.8 million kuna are planned for Croatian ports.
A national broadband aggregation infrastructure will be built with a value of 780 million kuna.
Croatia plans to determine its first 5G city and to adopt a national plan for the development of broadband access throughout the country for the period 2021-2027.
Environment and Energy Ministry says that 2020 will be marked with the preparation and adoption of a global and European strategy on biodiversity.
It expects to adopt the first national Strategy of adapting to climate change for the period until 2040 with a view to 2070 and it also plans to prepare a national action plan for the next five-year period that will contain priority measures in that regard.
More economy news can be found in the Business section.
