Invest in Croatia

With the goal of improving the investment environment, Croatia is offering special programs for investment promotion, and foreign investors are completely equal to domestic investors in terms of rights and obligations.

The potential of Croatia lies in its knowledge-based society. Croatia puts great stress on the quality of education, meaning that the investors can count on an educated, motivated and innovative work force which is the base for the development of the high technology and business services sectors.

Croatia has instituted reforms

Foreign and domestic investment is critically needed for sustained economic growth in Croatia . Although in the past few years Croatia has instituted reforms in order to become more competitive as investment and business location, Croatia still has little operational capacity to promote investment opportunities.

Optimistic results

The Croatian economy is registering optimistic results; thanks to the growing domestic demand stimulated by the recent credit

Macro economics data and statistics for Croatia Starting business in Croatia

boom led by newly privatized and foreign-capitalized banks, capital investment (mainly in construction of roads), increases in tourism, and gains by small and medium-sized private enterprises. The country recorded a GDP growth rate of was 3.8% in 2004, 4.3% in 2005, and is estimated at 4.6% in 2006. The IMF forecasts a 4.7% GDP growth rate in 2007. The inflation is under control; remaining at less than 3.5% during 2006. In order to streamline the country's economy, the government of Croatia has tightened its budget, started privatization and adopted policies favouring opening of the country's economy to the international trade. Croatian faces a high unemployment rate (16% of the active population).

The industrial sector

The agriculture sector constitutes nearly 7.5% of country's GDP. Croatia mainly produces wheat, corn, sugar beet, fruits, wine and olive oil. More than one-third of Croatia is covered with forest and thus wood industry is one of the core sectors in its economy. The country has limited mineral resources. The industrial sector is focused mainly on the highly competitive activities such as textile, wood, iron & steel, aluminium and food-processing. The tourism sector is in full bloom and contributed almost 20% to country's GDP in 2005. Euromonitor predicts a growth of 42% in this sector between and 2010. Nearly 10 millions tourists visited Croatia in 2005.

European Union

The government of Prime Minister Ivo Sanader has made excellent progress in improving relations with neighboring countries and has improved cooperation with the International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia (ICTY) at The Hague. The Prime Minister has indicated the intention of the government to join the EU by 2008. This will depend on the country moving rapidly to adopt the acquis communautaire. While a start has been made through the Stabilisation and Association Agreement with EU, much remains to be done.