A total of 51 percent of 432 directors, senior executives, or company owners who were polled by the Promocija Plus agency about the economic prospects for 2019, think that the situation will be unchanged compared to this year, while one in three said they expect some improvements next year.

Presenting the findings of the survey called “Barometer of Optimism”, conducted among members of the Croatian Employers’ Association (HUP), the pollster’s director Agan Begic said that the fact that only 34 percent of those polled expected a little better situation reflected the trend of decline in business optimism, which could give rise to concern to some extent.

Considering the assessments of the state of affairs in 2018, every second respondent described the economy this year as moderately good.

Only 5 percent of those polled see the situation in the outgoing year as excellent, while the same amount describe it as extremely bad.

Some 20 percent described the situation as very good and the same percentage saw it as bad.

The average grade on the scale from one to five is 3.01, which reflects the trend of mild rise from year to year, Begic said, adding that this trend is in correlation with economic growth.

Broken down by sectors, the lowest grade, 2.8, was given by the construction sector, and the production sector gave the highest grade, 3.09.

Broken down by regions, the current economic situation got the lowest grades in Dalmatia (2.75), and Slavonia (2.89), while employers in central and northern Croatia as well as in the Rijeka city area gave the highest grade, 3.

Two in five employers, or some 41 percent, assessed that the situation was moderately better in comparison to 2017, while one in three (33 percent) said it was about the same.

HUP Director-General Davor Majetic said that employers usually cite high taxes, inefficient public administration, poor judiciary, non-fiscal tariffs, and labour legislation as well as corruption and labour shortages as main barriers to doing business, and added the government needs to launch reforms to remove those obstacles as soon as possible.

Follow N1 via mobile apps for Android | iPhone/iPad | Windows| and social media on Twitter | Facebook.