apiuEN

TRADE AND INVESTMENT PROMOTION AGENCY RANKED AMONG TOP 25 WORLD AGENCIES

Trade and Investment Promotion Agency according to the newest World Bank research is for the first time ranked among top 25 Investment Promotion Agencies in the competition of 181 countries.

FIAS Global Investment Promotion Benchmark (GIPB) index measures efficiency of national agencies under the criteria of informativeness, web page appearance and contents, as well as the productivity of managing foreign investors? inquiries. Assessment was made by independent foreign experts in period between May and September 2008, without prior notice of the research.

It is important to notice that APIU has found itself along with very developed countries like Austria, which is at the same time ranked first, Sweden, Germany, Canada, Great Britain etc. As for the transition countries, Lithuania, Latvia, Hungary and Czech Republic are along with Croatia ranked among top 25.

Operating expenses

According to the Competitiveness Index 2008, Croatian economy is 61st in the World regarding competitiveness.

Operating expenses in Croatia are significantly lower than in the European Union and still very competitive in comparison with neighbouring countris. The prices of electrical power, natural gas and telephone as well as petrol and diesel prices are among the lowest in the region.

Beside low operating costs, Croatian Government has been conducting various reforms in order to remove administrative barriers and to enable companies to be more efficient. World Bank’s “Doing Business 2008” report recognized all the improvements and ranked Croatia among top 10 reformers in the World.