The implementation of the national recovery and resilience plan is expected to contribute 1.4 percentage points to Croatia's GDP growth in 2022 and as much in 2023, a conference was told in Zagreb on Tuesday.

The fifth and last conference organized by the newspaper publisher Hanza Media to mark the 30 years of Croatia’s independence focused on strengthening the absorption capacity for EU funding and the slow issuing of calls for applications.

Addressing the conference, Tomislav Coric, the Minister of Economy and Sustainable Development, said that Croatia was faced with such challenges as creating a low-carbon society and converging towards the most developed European economies.

“This will be taking place as part of the Green Deal, the new economic and developmental paradigm promoted by the European Commission,” Ćorić said, adding that this was opening up huge opportunities.

He said that the new EU financial envelopes would enable the digitization of the Croatian economy over the next five to ten years. He noted that the focus should be on those sectors of the economy that could achieve long-term growth and development, such as ICT, and that there was also the need to increase the competitiveness of the manufacturing industry.

Coric also highlighted the idea of economic sovereignty, which should manifest itself in energy and agricultural self-sufficiency and the preservation of the most important resources such as water.

The prime minister’s special economic adviser, Zvonimir Savic, recalled that Croatia would have access to €24.5 billion from various EU sources over the next ten years, which he said was a great opportunity for development.

He cited estimates according to which the implementation of the national recovery and resilience plan would contribute 1.4 percentage points to the country’s GDP growth in 2022 and as much in 2023. He also referred to the European Commission’s projections according to which Croatia would be among the three fastest growing EU economies in the next two years.