ZAGREB, September 4, 2020 – Minister of Economy and Sustainable Development Tomislav Coric said on Friday that he would try to steer as much funds from the EU aid package of €22 billion intended for Croatia as possible to the economy and private sector.
Coric was addressing participants at the Croatian Money Market conference in Opatija.
He said that he had heard from representatives of the real sector in which direction they thought Croatia’s recovery should be going.
“We all share a certain dose of optimism about what is to come. The question of distribution of European funds from the EU envelopes of the 2021-2027 operational programme and from the recovery and resilience programme, will be a key issue. The ministry and government intend to direct the majority of those funds towards the economy,” Coric said.
He added that it is necessary to improve the domestic economy’s competitiveness and productivity in a number of industries, digitise the economy and improve the trade balance by reducing the deficit and boosting GDP growth.
Asked by reporters how much of the €22 billion was available to the private sector, Coric said that that has not been defined yet because neither of the two envelopes had been fully defined at the European level.
“We will probably have to wait for a few months for the answer to that question. Recovery plans need to be officially submitted to the European Commission by April next year and the major part of the funds will be based on that,” he said and added: “It is important that already now we allocate as much money as possible to the private sector. There is no alternative. We have to be as strong as possible so that we can return to the pre-crisis level,” said Coric.
Responding to reporters’ questions, Coric said that the public debt would not explode and that a brilliant job had been done with regard to settling solvency and the government’s liabilities for 2020.
For the latest travel info, bookmark our main travel info article, which is updated daily.
Read the Croatian Travel Update in your language – now available in 24 languages
Join the Total Croatia Travel INFO Viber community.
