At the end of March around 24,000 businesses had their accounts blocked due to debts, with their total debt amounting to 12.8 billion kuna (€1.7 billion), according to a report released by the Financial Agency (Fina) on Monday.

The figure includes more than 8,400 companies and some 15,500 registered tradesmen with unpaid debts.

By area, the largest portion of debt is held by Zagreb-based businesses – 4.3 billion kuna (€582 million), or 37.3 percent of the total debt. They are followed by businesses based in the Split-Dalmatia County, with 1.4 billion kuna of debt or 11.1 percent of the total, and those based in Zagreb County – which surrounds the capital city but does not include it – with 800 million kuna debts, or 6.2 percent of the total debt.

Around 70.8 percent of the entire debt was held by businesses from the top six counties by the amount of debt held by locally-based companies and tradesmen.

The highest average debt per county, was in the city of Zagreb, where companies with frozen accounts owed 894,000 kuna (€121,000) on average, followed by the northern Medjimurje County with 729,000 kuna, and the southern Sibenik-Knin County with an 618,000 kuna average debt.

Retail also had the largest number of ‘blocked’ businesses – nearly 5,100; followed by those in construction (3,000) and the processing industry (2,500).

(€1 = 7.39 kuna)

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