ZAGREB, February 15, 2018 – The government sent to parliament on Thursday a final bill on strategic projects aimed at accelerating the process of obtaining documentation necessary for the implementation of strategic investment projects and halving the investment value criterion from 150 million kuna to 75 million kuna.
Economy Minister Martina Dalić presented a number of novelties aimed at simplifying the procedure, notably for private investment projects.
The current law has been in force since 2013 and has been amended twice in the meantime. Since the law entered into effect, a total of 29 projects had been included in the list of the strategic investment projects, of which 13 were listed in the past year alone.
Dalić said one of the novelties of the bill was also reducing the financial limit, namely the investment criterion for strategic investment projects from 150 to 75 million kuna, while the criterion for project in areas of special state concern, islands and those from the farming production sector, fisheries and forestry are reduced from 20 to 10 million kuna.
Under the current law, investors must provide bank guarantees for 10% of the total amount of the project while the amendments will reduce this amount to 5%. This change is important to make the entire procedure more appealing to private investors.
The bill also proposes redefining how state assets are managed, such as forest land, farmland, public roads, etc. Under the bill, energy investment project will be included in the list of strategic investment projects.
The bill also introduces a penalty fee in the amount of 0.1% of the total value of the project, in case the investors fail to respect deadlines.
