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Croatia’s ICT industry is growing faster than the EU average

By 06.10.2023October 22nd, 2024No Comments
Croatia’s ICT industry is growing faster than the EU average

06.10.2023

The Economic Coffee, an event where the Croatian Employers’ Association brings together leading people in the domestic IT and telecommunications industry. 

We gathered the most important points and summarised them below. 

Growth, growth, growth

The share of the ICT sector in gross value added of almost 6% exceeds the EU averages, marking it as a sector playing a key role in the country’s economic development. At the same time, exports of computer programming services and related activities have risen impressively, exceeding EUR 1.6 billion, making up a significant share of our country’s total exports. The US has become the main export market, together with Germany, the United Kingdom and Sweden.

The ICT sector has proven to be one of the most resilient ones during the pandemic, considered key for the energy crisis, technological change and associated challenges.

Zooming on Croatia: boosted turnover in ICT

  • The total turnover of the Croatian ICT industry reached EUR 7.2 billion (10.7 % of GDP), which is 16.9 % higher than in 2021, representing almost 5 % of the total income of the non-financial part of the country’s economy;
  • The revenue of the computer programming segment and related activities reached EUR 3.5 billion (5.2 % of GDP), which is 24.5% higher than in 2021 or 2.5% of the total turnover of the non-financial part of the economy;
  • HUP ICT members expect revenues to grow by 10-15% in 2023, and in the medium term, by 2026, the surveyed expect 10-20 % per year to grow;
  • The number of employees in the ICT industry reached more than 50 thousand in 2022 and the number of ICT entrepreneurs is over 8.000. The analysis also shows that the ICT sector has a significant increase in employment, even more than 10in the first 8 months of 2023.

In order to support the further development of the ICT industry and the achievement of the 13% GVA target, the HUP ICT association advocates tax relief to labour to TOP 5 of the EU’s most competitive transition countries, tax reductions on (reinvested) profits and tax breaks for R & D. It also advocates an improved immigration policy with a focus on attracting foreign students and highly skilled workers. Support for the employment and retention of young people and ICT professionals in general along the lines of EU practice is considered important.

HUP ICT association also highlighted the need to eliminate unfair competition from alternative forms of income, which encourage companies that are not registered at all in Croatia for tax purposes.

Looking ahead

HUP-ICT also call for harnessing the potential of the Croatian ICT industry to bring about additional benefits and quality shifts in the economy, public administration and society. The digital transformation of Croatia’s economy requires strengthening the partnership between traditional Croatian businesses and ICT companies with experience in digitalisation, and in order to speed up this process, non-repayable support for digitalisation and support for entrepreneurs for the transition to an energy and resource-efficient economy.

In order to further develop ICT infrastructure in good quality, it is necessary to ensure the existence of very high capacity networks in Croatia as a prerequisite for the digitalisation of the public administration, the economy and society, with an increased use of renewable energy sources.

See the full REPORT – Croatian Analysis of the ICT sector here.

The new edition of HUP Economic Coffee also organised a panel discussion with the participation of Minister for Labour, Pension System, Family and Social Policy, Marin Piletić, co-founder and operational director of Infobipa Roberto Kutić, Member of the Board and Director General for Corporate Affairs of Hrvatski Telekom and Vice-President of the HUP-ICT Association Siniša Đuranović, co-founder of Sofascorea Ivan Belazć, and co-founder and member of the CROZ’s board of directors Krešimir Mudrovčić. 

Photo: HUP

Details

Target audience

Digital skills for ICT professionals

Digital technology

Digital skills

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