AmCham conference: Croatia's growth may be constrained by tourism's slower recovery

Croatia can reach its pre-corona crisis Gross Domestic Product level in 2022, but the tourist industry could constrain such developments, the conference "Overview of 2020 and Outlook for 2021", organised by AmCham Croatia, was told on Wednesday.

Addressing the conference Daniel Lenardic, a partner of KPMG Croatia, was quoted as saying that "the impact of the coronavirus (COVID-19) is being felt by businesses around the world. Leaders are navigating a broad range of interrelated issues that span from keeping their employees and customers safe, shoring-up cash and liquidity, reorienting operations and navigating complicated government support programs. For many of us, things are not going to return to the way things were - nor should they."

Commenting on Croatia's prospects, Lenardic pointed to the worrying dependence of Croatia on its tourism sector. The contribution of this sector to Croatia's GDP is about 18%, and in this way, the exposure of Croatia's economy to tourism is the highest in the EU, according to this expert.

Lenardic said he did not believe the tourism industry could return to pre-crisis levels in the next two or three years.

The outgoing U.S. ambassador Robert Kohorst commented on the biggest achievements in his ambassadorial term in Croatia, pointing out the U.S. assistance to Croatia to get the LNG terminal off Krk.

He mentioned the Croatia-US talks on an agreement on the avoidance of double taxation as well as progress in efforts to enable Croatians to travel to USA without visas under the Visa Waiver Program. The diplomat believes that the procedure for concluding the Visa Waiver programme could be completed in the first half of 2021.

Considering the USA-Croatia defence cooperation, Kohorst spoke about the donations of military equipment.

He said he also hoped that Croatia would choose the U.S. bid for the procurement of multipurpose fighter jets.

No matter what decision Croatia, as a sovereign country, will make when choosing the best bid for military aircraft, the United States will respect it, Kohorst said, recalling the partnership between the two countries of more than 25 years.

He praised Croatia for improving the business environment, but called for expediting the reform of the judiciary and reducing red tape.

(Hina/FaH) 

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