The outstanding liabilities refer to 66,922 entities employing 72,147 workers.

Outstanding liabilities of legal persons in late March amounted to HRK 23.5 billion, and those of natural persons (trades people) to almost HRK 5.4 billion, according to FINA figures that were carried by the "Gospodarska kretanja" bulletin of the Croatian Chamber of Commerce (HGK).

The increase in the number of insolvent legal persons, outstanding liabilities and the number of employed workers continued in March, at a faster pace than in the previous two months.

The same trends were registered for trades, but with a somewhat slower dynamic.

At the end of March, there were 28,749 registered insolvent legal persons employing 47,781 workers and their total outstanding liabilities amounted to HRK 23.5 billion.

This is 1.1 billion more than in the previous month and 7.9 billion or 51 percent more than in March 2009.

The number of insolvent legal persons was 3.2 percent (902) up from the previous month, and 31.3 percent (6,853) up from March 2009.

The number of employees in insolvent companies went up by 4,500 in relation to February, and by 7,938 workers (19.9 percent) in relation to the same month of 2009.

The number of insolvent natural persons (trades people) went up too, with 38,173 insolvent trades people having been registered in late March. This is 753 more insolvent trades people than in February, and 5,300 more insolvent trades people (16.3%) than in March 2009.

Insolvent trades employed 24,366 workers, up 15.3 percent (3,200 workers) from March last year.

Outstanding liabilities of trades amounted to HRK 5.38 billion, up HRK 133 million or 2.5 percent from February. On the annual level, those liabilities were 1.07 billion or 25 percent up.

Analysing movements in outstanding liabilities among legal persons according to payment date, HGK analysts report a monthly increase of 36.5 percent in liabilities which are paid within a period of 60 days. Annually, the increase was much more dynamic for all payment periods up to one year (from 58 to 85 percent), while a slightly weaker dynamic was reported for time terms of more than 360 days.

HGK analysts say that insolvency is still growing and that the government's recent measures designed to help in economic recovery will contribute to halting negative trends in that sector of the economy. The recently adopted measures envisage the payment of liabilities within a period of 60 days until the end of this year, and the payment of liabilities within a period of 45 days as of next year.