Croatian government adopted on Thursday its state aid plan for winemaking in the 2019-23 five-year period, which earmarked €55.4 million to be spent on investments and development projects in the local wine industry.

Agriculture Minister, Tomislav Tolusic, said in a cabinet meeting on Thursday that the first round of tenders this funding would be launched by the end of January.

The state aid, to be spent in five annual instalments of €11.09 million, will include €10.8 million from EU funds each year, with the state budget adding €260,100 to the sum.

Croatian winemakers produced a total of 777,000 hectolitres of wine in 2018, which was about 35 percent up from the 2017, when wine industry across the EU experienced low yields. By volume of production, Croatia ranks as 12th winemaking country in the bloc.

According to a government report compiled in December, a total of 12.4 billion kuna (€1.67 billion) in various subsidies and state aid has been disbursed in 2017, some 8.5 percent up from 11.4 billion kuna (€1.54 billion) in 2016 and 25.5 percent up from 9.9 billion kuna (€1.33 billion) in 2015.

This means that state-aid-to-GDP ratio also rose to reach 3.4 percent of GDP, up from 3.2 percent in 2016 and 2.9 percent in 2015. In terms of overall government spending, the share of state aid also continued to grow, to 9.9 percent in 2017.

By economic sector, subsidies in farming and fishing totalled 5.2 billion kuna (€700 million), accounting for 42 percent of all state aid in 2017, while the remaining 58 percent, or 7.2 billion kuna (€970 million), was spent for Croatia’s industry and services sector.

(€1 = 7.41 kuna)

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