In his comment on the performance of the government in the first year of its term, the president of the Croatian People's Party (HNS) and former first deputy prime minister and economy minister, Radimir Cacic, said that complete consensus existed between the four coalition partners and in particular between the Social Democratic Party (SDP) and his HNS.
He said that the first year of the cabinet was marked with defining strategies' instruments to facilitate their implementation, choosing people ready to achieve these and preparing a legislative framework to facilitate this. None of this was easy particularly in reference to the second recession that has impacted Europe and Croatia, he added.
The key thing is that large projects have been mapped, deadlines are set, funding sources identified and most of these relate to energy and infrastructure and water management as far as public sector investments are concerned, according to Cacic.
Legislative framework has been set to facilitate private projects in education, judiciary, culture and an entire series of public/private partnership programmes to activate private capital which should give our economy a chance.
The private sector has been given a great opportunity in green energy projects, and so far contracts in value of 400 million euros have been concluded in this sector, he added.
Now the next step is strong cooperation with entrepreneurs. It is necessary to facilitate participation of the banking sector to rehabilitate the economy by facilitating loans that will enable the economy to stand on its feet. It is also necessary to raise competitiveness by bringing down barriers in order to enable entrepreneurs to take on some responsibility, said Cacic.
