The number of taxi entrepreneurs in Croatia has kept rising since 2009, when a mere 22 businesses of this type were registered to 1,343 in 2019, and an additional 274 taxi businesses were set up from the start of 2020 to mid-March in 2021, the Financial  Agency (Fina) said on Monday.

According to the agency which presented the data on the occasion of International Taxi Driver Day, observed on 22 March, in 2009 there were 47 people employed in this service, and ten years later, taxi businesses employed 1,859 workers.

In 2011, this sector saw a surge in staff when 670 people were hired as against 96 in 2010. This rise was achieved due to a high number of employees in four taxi companies that employed 431 workers on aggregate in 2011:  Autoprijevoz Oliva (138), Cammeo (120), MV prijevoz (100) and Autoprijevoz modem (73).

According to Fina’s data, taxi businesses in Croatia operated at a loss in the period from 2009 to 2012, while from 2013 to 2015 companies in this sector operated at a profit on aggregate, to experience a loss in 2016 and 2017. Finally in 2018 and 2019, they recovered, with net profits of HRK 791,000 and 4.1 million respectively.

Broken down by region, the highest number of taxi businesses in 2019 was in the City of Zagreb (700). Primorje-Gorski Kotar County with Rijeka having 145 taxi entrepreneurs in 2019, and was followed by Split-Dalmatia County (131) and Osijek-Baranja County (126).

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