The first €800 million from the European Recovery and Resilience Facility will arrive at the beginning of next year, Regional Development and EU Funds Minister Natasa Tramisak said on Wednesday.

The money is intended for the economy, job retention, liquidity and incentives for the development of the manufacturing industry, she said on Croatian Radio.

The money is primarily intended for the continuation of the incentives schemes the government launched at the beginning of this year, but also for investment incentives for business people, she added.

The minister said there was interest and sound business people willing to invest.

She said that since mid-2013, when it joined the EU, Croatia received HRK 28.3 billion more from the EU budget than it paid into it.

Speaking of the current programme and financial perspective, Tramisak said 103.5% of projects had been contracted and that 33% of funds from the EU budget had been absorbed, with 40% having been disbursed to beneficiaries.

“Those numbers reflect a significant step forward. We still have two and a half to three years for the realisation of the contracted projects. We are talking about more than HRK 50 billion,” she said, adding that several big projects would be contracted by year’s end.

In terms of contracting, Croatia ranks fifth in the EU, Tramisak said.

She went on to say that it was necessary to work more on the realisation of large-scale projects which would resolve some of Croatia’s big strategic problems.

She said the national development strategy, necessary for absorbing €22 billion from the next EU budget, would be put to public consultation soon.

(€1 = HRK 7.5)