Finance Minister Zdravko Maric said on Thursday taxpayers had paid HRK 4.42 billion to date for enforced guarantees because the Uljanik shipyard did not build ships that had been commissioned.

The government has confirmed to Novi List daily that guarantees for a ship Uljanik was building for Belgium’s Jan De Nul company have been enforced, costing the state budget over HRK 900 million.

Responding to questions from the press ahead of a cabinet meeting, Maric said the state would have to pay another HRK 120 million in enforced guarantees for ships that won’t be built.

Asked if he expected GDP, which grew 3.9% annually in Q1, to continue to grow or remain unchanged, he said he expected it to grow.

We are watching the pace from quarter to quarter. We are all happy now because economic activity has accelerated. It remains to be seen what will happen by the end of the year, he added.

Maric recalled that the government had projected this year’s growth at 2.5% and based its budget estimates on that. “Based on this result for the first quarter, it’s possible to correct growth forecasts for the whole year, but the government won’t be doing that just yet.”

He said a convergence programme was recently adopted and that the adoption of economic and fiscal policy guidelines was planned for the end of July, while the “budget process” was due in the autumn.

Maric said he was pleased with the growth of investments, which contributed to the GDP growth in Q1, but noted that imports were still high and that it was important to boost domestic production.

(EUR 1 = HRK 7.4)