Construction: Croatia

Written by Michael Glazer, SEE Regional Advisors – EECFA Croatia

For Croatia, as for other EECFA countries, the Russian invasion of Ukraine has been both a supply shock and a demand shock. And many of the elements of these shocks are the same for Croatia as for other EECFA countries. On the supply side, energy costs are rising as are the costs of construction materials and of construction finance. Supply chains and labor markets have also been disrupted. On the demand side, inflation has cut into consumers’ real disposable income, consumer confidence has been shaken as a result and finance for real estate purchases has become more expensive.

EECFA (Eastern European Construction Forecasting Association) conducts research on the construction markets of 8 Eastern-European countries, including Croatia. The current reports were issued in December 2021 and the next reports will be issued in June 2022. For orders and sample report: eecfa.com

Admittedly, these disruptions are to a significant extent a prolongation and exacerbation of existing trends. For a considerable time before the invasion, consumer and producer price levels were rising broadly, construction costs were going up faster than overall inflation and central banks were considering tightening monetary policy to get inflation under control. Bank lending criteria were also getting stricter and consumer confidence was declining. All of this had a negative effect on Croatia’s construction output, but the sector was booming, nonetheless.

That said, the invasion’s impact has by no means been just more of the same for Croatia, and indeed its specific effects may weaken certain of the country’s construction sectors, at least in the short term. One cause for concern is the sharp, invasion-caused rise in Croatian food and energy prices. These threaten to both significantly reduce consumer resources available for home purchases and to exacerbate potential homebuyers’ concerns for the future. They may also, by forcing large price rises that in turn diminish demand, reduce industrial output, at least to an extent.

Also, Croatia’s tourism industry, which contributes as much as 20% of its GDP and is a major driver of its hotel, residential and commercial construction, is extremely sensitive to geopolitical developments, especially those in Europe. For example, in late 2021 and very early 2022, Croatia benefited greatly from Russian vaccine tourism, as Russians sought vaccines other their domestic Sputnik, both because Sputnik wasn’t very good and because, for that reason, European Union countries wouldn’t accept it. Now, though, the invasion has shut off even the normal flow of Russian and Ukrainian tourists and will continue to do so for this summer and fall at the least.

The uncertainty that the invasion has created in the minds of potential EU visitors as to future energy costs, and so as to their disposable income, may also damage Croatia’s tourism season this year. Or benefit it if as a result of these uncertainties EU tourists opt for cheaper, closer to home, holidays. Either way, Croatian construction output will likely be significantly affected as hotels change their capital spending plans to adapt, builders of coastal dwellings respond to alterations in demand and Zagreb construction residential and office developers adjust their products and their output levels to reflect buyer interest.

One sector that the invasion has not had a significant effect on is civil engineering. Work on, for example, Croatia’s large rail projects continues as before. The same holds true for industrial construction and to a large extent warehousing and storage, the former because the invasion has not changed the medium-term supply/demand calculus for those building such projects, the latter because even if one of the main drivers for such projects, consumer Internet purchasing, is uncertain in the short term, it will clearly rise substantially in the near future.

In the medium term, Croatian civil engineering may actually benefit from an invasion-induced turn to sources other than Russia to satisfy the EU’s need for gas. Such a shift would likely mean that the storage capacity of Croatia’s Krk Island LNG terminal would be increased, and pipelines built to enable the terminal to furnish more gas to more countries.

Written by Michael Glazer (SEE Regional Advisors) and Tatjana Halapija (Nada Projekt), EECFA’s Croatia members

Croatia’s remarkable recovery from the brutal impact that the COVID-19 epidemic had on the country in 2020 is, like its construction boom, both real and smoke and mirrors, both temporary and long-term.

Photo by Tatjana Halapija

The country’s tourism sector, brought low by COVID-19 in 2020 (with commercial accommodation facilities recording a 64.2% reduction in arrivals and a 55.3% fall in overnights compared to 2019), has rebounded a mere year later to levels as strong as or even stronger than the 2019 banner year for the sector. August 2021 overnights, for example, achieved 93% of 2019 levels and fiscalized receipts (a proxy for revenues) were 21% higher than those of August 2019. This rebound is crucially important to Croatia, since, depending on how you measure it, the tourism sector accounts for 18% or more of the country’s economy.

First, though, the smoke and mirrors part: a large, but hard to determine, portion of the apparent tourism recovery is due to the government’s requiring that guests staying in Croatia be registered with governmental authorities. In fact, a registration requirement has existed for many years, but Croatian lessors of rooms for short-term occupancy, which constitute the majority of the country’s tourism beds, have long ignored it in order to evade taxes. The difference is that for COVID-19-related reasons the government is finally enforcing the requirement. The upshot has been that many more guests have been registered in the COVID-19 era than would have been previously.

The reality, though, is also encouraging. It is clear that significantly more tourists have visited Croatia this year than might have been expected given the fierceness of the epidemic both in Croatia and in the countries that are the typical sources of its guests, although the exact size of this increase is hard to discern through the distorting glass of official statistics. What is certain, though, is that the surprisingly large number of tourists who actually visited Croatia and the increase in the portion of them who were registered has both leveled the playing field for large hotel chains (which have always registered their guests more or less accurately) and provided badly needed windfall revenues for the government. Regarding the latter, the budget deficit for 2021 is anticipated by the Minister of Finance to be less than 3.8% of GDP despite extensive spending on COVID-19 and earthquake relief. He expects the deficit for 2022 to fall to 3.0% of GDP.

The upshot for the Croatian construction sector is likely to be quite positive. Hotel firms are likely to loosen the reins at least somewhat on their construction activities. While this will be to an extent offset by lower construction spending by small renters of vacation homes and rooms, they, too, will have earned more this year than they expected, even taking into account that unlike prior years they will have to pay taxes on their income. And the windfall tax revenues generated by their tax payments are an unalloyed benefit for the government which will use at least some of them to pay for the new construction required to compensate for the recent earthquakes.

Other factors are less positive, making the overall construction picture in Croatia hard to read. GDP growth for 2021 is now forecast by the Croatian Minister of Finance to be greater than 8%, also unexpectedly high as the continuing increase in the forecast number over the course of the year shows (e.g., the European Commission’s July 2021 forecast was for 5.4% GDP growth in 2021, itself an increase in the EC’s prior forecasts). So, immensely positive for the construction sector.

Construction forecast for Croatia is available in the EECFA Forecast Report that can be purchased on eecfa.com. EECFA (Eastern European Construction Forecasting Association) conducts research on the construction markets of 8 Eastern-European countries.

That said, inflation is high (and possibly accelerating). The annualized change in the Harmonized Index of Consumer Prices was 3.5% in September (compared to 3.1% in August and 2.7% in July).

Construction costs (both supplies and labor) are nearing stratospheric levels. Regarding labor, Croatian construction firms are no longer importing workers only from Croatia’s neighbors in Southeast Europe or even from Central and Eastern Europe as a whole but are instead turning more and more to India, Nepal, the Philippines and other distant sources. This is not an option for many building supplies, of course, shortages of which are no longer just driving prices up but are now also slowing projects down. Demand and available resources differ greatly from construction sector to construction sector, so a wide variation in sectoral output is to be expected.

A number of other factors contribute to this variation, which we will analyze in detail in our upcoming Winter 2021 forecast report.

Written by Michael Glazer (SEE Regional Advisors) and Tatjana Halapija (Nada Projekt), EECFA’s Croatian members

It’s at last becoming possible to assess the consequences for Croatia’s construction sector of the country’s July 2020 elections. Jockeying for governmental positions, COVID-19- and tourism-season-related priorities and other pressing matters prevented the new Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) led government from moving on its larger agenda until recently. Now, though, the political picture, and the impact of the elections on Croatia’s construction sector, is getting clearer.

The July elections were particularly important to the Croatian construction sector for a number of reasons. They occurred mid-COVID-19-pandemic, when a change in government or even just a change in government policy would have had large consequences for Croatia’s fight against the disease and so for public- and private-sector finances and accordingly for the resources that would be available in the next few years for construction projects. This was especially true as the elections were called in the midst of Croatia’s tourism season, a critically sensitive time, as the survival of the country’s hospitality sector, which is responsible for much of Croatia’s building construction, was at stake, and relatively soon after the Zagreb earthquake, which caused on the order of EUR 12bln in damage to the city’s buildings and infrastructure that must be repaired.

Making the elections still more consequential, they seemed likely to decide the fates of several political parties and movements, some with significant influence on Croatia’s construction sector, as well as those of a few individually powerful politicians important to that sector. Finally, they also seemed likely to affect Croatia’s relationship with the new EU Commission and EU Parliament, relations determinative of the amount and nature of EU COVID-19- and earthquake-related aid that Croatia could secure.

So, how have things turned out? Regarding winners and loser, the center-right HDZ was by far the biggest winner (increasing by five the number of seats held by its coalition in the one hundred fifty-one seat parliament) and the center-left Social Democratic Party (SDP) the biggest loser (with its coalition’s seat count falling by ten). Far-right defectors from the HDZ did well as a new party (securing sixteen seats), but paradoxically lost power, since the HDZ’s strong performance made them irrelevant to the formation of an HDZ-led government.

The consequences of the HDZ victory are mostly positive for the construction sector. Importantly, there will be substantial continuity in the government’s construction policy. While by no means certain, it’s possible that a victory by the SDP and its coalition could have led to months of fractious conflict within the coalition, and indeed within the SDP itself, and put in power a party that after many years out of government might no longer have been familiar with how to rule.

As to the policies that the new government will adopt, further simplification of bureaucratic procedures relating to construction is likely, as is a continued emphasis on large infrastructure projects and COVID-19- and earthquake-damage amelioration measures. Crucially as to the latter, Andrej Plenković, Croatia’s prime minister both before and now again after the elections, has great pull with the European Commission, since he played a major role in brokering the selection of Ursula von der Leyen as the Commission’s president. (In fact, von der Leyen, while EC president, made a controversial video supporting Plenković’s candidacy, for which she later apologized.) For the same reason, he has similar influence with the European People’s Party, of which the HDZ is a member. These relationships have very likely already been reflected in the large sums that the EU proposes to allocate to Croatia for earthquake and COVID-19 relief. They probably also mean that the EU will be more flexible in how Croatia spends the money that it receives for these purposes. All good news for construction in Croatia and in particular for civil engineering projects.

Construction forecast for Croatia is available in the EECFA Forecast Report Croatia that can be purchased on eecfa.com

Also important to the construction sector is the dramatic decline of the Croatian People’s Party (HNS) as a national political force and the eclipse of its leaders. The HNS kept only one parliamentary seat and no ministries. The party’s formerly extensive influence on energy matters is now very much past tense, and its members are being gradually removed from positions of power in Croatian state-owned enterprises, a process likely to be accelerated by the arrest of the CEO of JANAF, Croatia’s gas pipeline company, who was formerly a HNS member is said to still be close to that party. The result is likely to be a better alignment of Croatia’s energy policy with its policies in other spheres. In particular, it will likely lead to a construction program for electrical-power facilities more in keeping with Croatia’s energy needs than with its government’s political makeup.

Other developments have been less positive. The HDZ has not followed through on some of its electioneering promises. One important one is that the number of Croatian sub-sovereign administrative divisions would be reduced from the present 428 municipalities (the smallest of which has 137 inhabitants), 128 cities and twenty counties to a more sensible number. The cost of maintaining so many governmental organizations is quite high, with, for example, a mayor, municipal secretary, administrator/bookkeeper, etc. required for each municipality and city not to mention the offices, office cleaners, doorkeepers, official automobiles and the like. that lead to even more expense. It appears, though, that the internal political cost of rationalizing Croatia’s local governments, which would be a painful task for a government of any political stripe, is too high for the current one, and so significant reductions in numbers and payrolls are unlikely. The rub here is not just that Croatia’s surfeit of local governments is expensive and leads to corruption. It’s also that reduction in their number and related reforms are high on the priority list of the EU. So a failure to follow through on the promised reforms could lead to friction in the release of EU funds, including construction-related money.

The new government has also scored some own goals with its post-earthquake and anti-COVID-19 policies. As to its response to the devastation that the earthquake wrought in and near Zagreb, promised relief has been slow in coming, and the legislation governing it was not well drafted. While matters are now being clarified, funding delays have caused real suffering for those whose residences and offices the earthquake rendered unsafe.

As to the COVID-19 pandemic, the prior HDZ government’s success in the spring in tamping down COVID-19 infections eroded dramatically in the summer and fall. Daily infections are now at record levels, likely a result of lax enforcement of preventive measures in the summer (to accommodate tourists and electioneering) and continued lack of enforcement into the fall (reflecting public resistance to inconvenience and a loss in confidence in the government figures leading Croatia’s COVID-19 response). The upshot may be a weaker tourism season in 2021 as travelers no longer see Croatia as safe. This would in turn hurt the hotel construction sector directly and, because tourism is such a large part of the Croatian economy, many others indirectly. A failure to get COVID-19 back under control could also have other, nearer-term economic consequences through mounting health-care costs (including those relating to the disease’s long-term consequences) and worker absences due to self-isolation and disease symptoms. The latter absences could be quite prolonged given COVID-19’s effects.

Budgetary problems, including those alluded to above, are another problem facing the new government, and only a few of them are of its own making. Income and value-added tax receipts are down dramatically. Combined with the pandemic support payments needed to prevent massive unemployment and company failures, these shortfalls have blown a large hole in Croatia’s budget that the government has covered by borrowing. Earthquake relief and further COVID-19 measures will exacerbate the budgetary problem, and borrowing more is not a viable solution. While Croatia has been promised substantial EU aid, indeed more on a per capita basis than most EU members, it’s still not clear when that aid will arrive or how fast the government can disburse it once received. Progress at the EU level in this matter has so far been slow, and the consequences could be severe for all Croatian construction sectors, including civil engineering, if it does not speed up soon.

All in all, the outcome of Croatia’s July elections is likely the best that the country’s construction sector could have hoped for. Policy continuity, experience in governing and good relations with the EU are essential to Croatia at the present time. By triggering reform and renewal in the SDP, the elections may even have laid the groundwork for a more competitive, and hence more responsive, political environment in Croatia, which would also likely be a positive not just for the country, but for the sector.

Written by Michael Glazer (SEE Regional Advisors) and Tatjana Halapija (Nada Projekt) – EECFA Croatia

UPDATE ON 30 APRIL 2020: During the first phase of Croatia’s response to COVID-19, the country’s construction industry was not as tightly locked down as some others (e.g., the hospitality sector). While construction firms were not as free to operate as, say, grocery stores and food processing plants, projects of national significance, some projects considered important by municipalities and other sub-national governments and some private-sector projects continued to move forward. Construction companies were also called on to assist with the cleanup effort following the March 22 Zagreb earthquake. This provided some liquidity to the sector, or at least to those lucky firms involved in the projects on which work continued. Now that the Croatian government is lifting the strictest limitations on business, including those on construction work, construction activity is likely to increase considerably.

This, though, may be a double-edged sword. Social distancing is difficult to enforce on construction projects even with the best will in the world, and anecdotal evidence suggests that in many cases there is not even an effort to do so. For example, groups of workers have been seen traveling to and from construction sites seated close to one another in vehicles with enclosed cabins, and of course there are the frequent “supervisory meetings” where several workers gather to monitor the one working. If one or more construction workers causes an outbreak at some point, the sector as a whole could suffer real consequences.

Physical restrictions

On March 20, the Croatian government imposed stringent restrictions on movement and business activity in order to combat COVID-19.

• They included prohibitions on travel outside one’s place of residence or across international borders unless for trips defined as necessary (e.g., to transport goods to stores that remained open or internationally), closure of educational institutions and nurseries, cultural and sports facilities, prohibition on the operation of all but essential businesses and limitations on the size of gatherings (initially no more than 5 people, ultimately no more than 2)
• Work-from-home requirements were imposed
• Public transport was suspended

Mid-April, the Croatian government permitted travel within counties, while on April 20 restrictions were extended to May 5 but their strictness was reduced.

On March 22, a 5.5 (Richter)/5.3 (MW)/VII (MMI) earthquake struck Zagreb.

• It damaged 26,197 buildings of which 1,900 were rendered unusable. A number of hospitals, museums, churches, schools, government offices, historic buildings and other culturally important structures (including graves) were badly damaged
• No specific regulatory measures were immediately promulgated other than that many sidewalks were closed due to the risk of debris falling from roofs and facades

Construction works

No strict ban was imposed specifically on construction, but the industry was restricted by the broad limitation, from which it was not excepted, to working from home.

• That said, it appears that work continued on a number of construction projects, including those of the City of Zagreb and politically connected private firms and the Pelješac Bridge, either in violation of this limitation or pursuant to special exemptions
• Also, after the Zagreb earthquake a number of firms with the appropriate equipment were permitted to clear debris and blow things up

We are planning to issue the new EECFA Croatia Construction Forecast Report on 29 June 2020. Sample report and order

Anticovid measures in construction

• We are not aware of any construction-sector-focused anti-COVID-19 measures
• Construction firms are benefiting, though, from general measures that the Croatian government took to limit the economic consequences of COVID-19
• These measures include relief from taxes and governmental contributions (primarily payment deferrals for three months but some forgiveness), payroll support payments (minimum net wage of EUR533 for three months), loan payment moratoria (three to six months), debt enforcement moratoria (during the period of extraordinary measures), liquidity loans, sector-oriented loans (for the tourism and other export sectors) and credit lines for MSMEs in the tourism and hospitality sectors (although the minimum loan amount is EUR100k, which makes them ill-suited for micro and even small businesses)

Factors limiting the construction sector’s performance

• There is no lack of construction materials, particularly in view of the fact that most building has ceased
• Most tourism-related construction for the coming season has been completed, since that season is at hand
• But other construction projects are not moving forward except for those considered essential. (“Essential” can have a variety of definitions, depending on the government responsible for defining the term. Some politically connected private projects are proceeding.)
• Croatia’s heavy dependence on tourism, and the likelihood that tourism will not recover for years, means that construction, and the Croatian economy in general, will be very negatively affected for a significant period of time

Any other

Croatia’s handling of the COVID-19 crisis has been unexpectedly, indeed startlingly, good. It flattened the curve rapidly and has already achieved an R₀ of less than 1. Much is due to the chance replacement of an ethically tainted Minister of Health by a highly competent appointee shortly before the crisis broke. But much is also due to the professionalism of Croatia’s public health services and medical personnel.

It remains to be seen if Croatia can continue its stellar performance. There are signs that segments of the populace are beginning to ignore social distancing measures. But the government seems alert to the possibility of R₀ rising and willing to act rapidly to bring it down again.

It is clear, though, that Croatia’s quick and effective response to COVID-19 will lessen the severity of the economic effects of the crisis.

Croatia will be hit by a reduction in remittances from its citizens abroad. There may also be political consequences, since many Croatian ex pats are returning, and their political views may have been affected by their time abroad.

It is possible, but by no means certain, that the weaknesses in Croatia’s healthcare infrastructure, and possibly increased EU funding for healthcare infrastructure generally, will lead to significantly greater hospital and healthcare facility construction. That said, healthcare tourism, and so private healthcare construction is likely to be badly damaged long-term by COVID-19.

Construction in Zagreb, though, looks likely to increase dramatically in volume for years to come as reconstruction work of a minimum value of EUR6G will be needed.

Written by Michael Glazer (SEE Regional Advisors) and Tatjana Halapija (Nada Projekt), EECFA’s Croatian members

Croatia will at the turn of the year assume the rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union. So now is an appropriate time to assess how the Croatian government’s policies affect the country’s construction sector.

The government’s preparations for the presidency don’t inspire confidence that its influence is a positive one: the remodeling of the main building for the presidency won’t be completed until December 22, leaving no room for (further) delays. And there are concerns that the “finished” building won’t in fact provide satisfactory facilities. Not to mention the project’s being at least 50% over budget.

On the other hand, the current government has substantially increased Croatia’s absorption rate for EU funds. At 78% it is now slightly higher than the EU average of 77% and significantly greater than the country’s below-EU-average 2018 rate of 52%. This improved performance has enabled Croatia to invest massive amounts in infrastructure. And while, bureaucratic delays have meant that end users have received only 25% of the amounts they contracted for, much less than the 33% EU average, there is a real likelihood of even more rapid EU funds absorption in Croatia.

First, use-it-or-lose-it rules governing these moneys mean that contracts relying on them must be entered into before year-end 2020. Second, and crucially, presidential and parliamentary elections are coming up next year, by January 20 in the case of the president and by December 23 in the case of the parliament. Parliamentary elections, though, could be triggered far earlier if any of the minority members of the current, fragile coalition withdraws its support.

Continue reading How Croatia’s government policies are impacting the country’s construction sector

Earlier this year, Croatia’s construction industry at last seemed on track for recovery after many dismal years of negative growth. 2015 saw a number of construction sectors moving into positive figures for the first time since 2009, but the recovery really took hold last year with all construction sectors likely to show positive growth once complete data for the year are available. Now, though, the Agrokor crisis has thrown this rosy picture into doubt.

Written by Michael Glazer, SEE Regional Advisors and Tatjana Halapija, Nada Projekt – EECFA Croatia

First, some background. The Agrokor Group is by far ex-Yugoslavia’s largest business conglomerate, with EUR6.4 billion in sales in 2015. Indeed, it is one of Central Europe’s largest companies (11th, according to Deloitte’s Central Europe’s Top 500 2016) and its second largest retailer (behind Poland’s Jeronimo Martins Polska, also according to Deloitte). Among other things, Agrokor owns the biggest retail grocery chains in Croatia, Slovenia, Serbia and Bosnia-Herzegovina (BiH), several large Croatian agricultural producers, important Croatian resort projects, significant travel agencies and major distribution companies for the wholesale and HoReCa sectors in Croatia and BiH.

Agrokor is now in serious trouble. It is having difficulty finding liquidity, a government administrator has been appointed for it by the Croatian government, the Slovenian and Serbian governments are considering similar measures and it is making only limited payments to its suppliers, on its taxes and to its lenders.

In theory, the consequences of an Agrokor Group collapse could be grave for all of the economies in which the Group operates, particularly Croatia, Continue reading Agrokor aggravation: Do the Agrokor Group’s tribulations threaten the Croatian construction sector?