The newly created value of Croatia's 500 best companies, which is the sum of gross salaries and gross profit, in 2010 totalled 8.5 billion kuna, which is an increase of 10 percent in relation to 2009, when it amounted to 7.7 billion euros, reads the latest edition of the Lider business weekly.
This newspaper publishes, together with the Poslovna.hr web portal, a list of the 500 best companies.
The new list shows that the revenues of the 500 best businesses in 2010 increased by 5.2 percent in relation to the year before.
The revenues of the best companies last year amounted to 37.4 billion euros.
Even though it may seem that the situation is getting better, the growth was mostly owing to the INA oil company while other companies saw very small growth rates or stagnated. Last year INA was not on the list due to losses incurred in 2009.
In 2010 INA created 589.2 million euros of new value, increasing its productivity by 162.6 percent, its revenues by 21.8 percent (to 3.2 billion euros), and earning 295 million euros in profit.
The HT telecommunications company kept its second position, with 318.9 million euros of newly created value, a respectable increase of 46 percent.
Zagrebacka Banka, which in 2010 was ranked first, ended up third in this year's ranking, with 336.8 million euros of newly created value, a mild increase of 1.5 percent.
The ten companies with the biggest newly created value in 2010 include two more banks - Privredna Banka ranks fourth with 234 million euros of newly created value and Erste&Steiermaerkische Bank ranks tenth with 155 million euros of newly created value.
The biggest retail chain Konzum is ranked fifth with 212 million euros of newly created value. HEP-Operator Distribucijskog Sustava is sixth with 196 million euros, the Croatian Post is seventh with EUR 179 million, HEP is eighth with EUR 178 million, and Pliva is ninth with EUR 163 million of newly created value.
