More from Croatia

[Ivo Skoric]

More business opportunities in Croatia: Mail-Boxes, Etc.

Something that every business in the US takes for granted - having 
P.O. Box as a business address - is unknown of in Croatia. That of 
course is an obstacle to smaller businesses that cannot  pay for a 
physical office address in the sellers market of the Croatia's office 
real estate short on space.

Postal service does not rent P.O. Boxes. They simply did not realize 
the potential of revenue there. They will, though, offer to larger 
businesses that receive over 30 pieces of mail daily a service to 
keep that mail for them in a sort of a box. They are making a small 
savings on not having to deliver that mail. Unbelievable, but nice, 
they offer this service free of charge.

Croatia is ripe for private mail-boxes service, that would offer mail 
forwarding and similar advanced stuff.

-/-

Croatia's Defeating Demographics:
1.3 million people in Croatia works (~30%), 10% of population is with 
war-related disabilities, >14% is unemployed (now they started 
counting all part-timers as ‘employed', like the U.S. does, to bring 
the ugly statistics down), and there are 600 thousands kids in school 
(~15%)
=
there is not enough people working to feed all the people not 
working.

Current Bleak Solutions:
1) Exorbitant sales tax (PDV) of 22% (New York city has 8.25% for 
comparison) - more than 1/5 of the price of ANYTHING that you buy in 
Croatia goes to the state. This feeds the elderly, pays for the 
schools, provides for the disabled veterans, but this also kills the 
economy. 
2) Consumer debt: Croatia is full of new banks holding nice Croatian 
names like Erste, Hypo, Vereinte, etc. Their foreign owners stoked 
them with capital realizing the potential of Croatia'e emerging 
market. They extended that capital to consumers, via credit cards and 
loans. Banks, of course, hope to make a killing with high interest 
rates. So far, however, they just created enormous consumer debt 
(which amounts to about the half of the country's $20B debt, which is 
already larger than former Yugoslavia's was before the war). And some 
people already balked under the burden of monthly payments, so just 
recently Croatia established the debtors registry. Eventually, if 
Croatian economy does not pick up (salaries are 3 times smaller than 
in EU, while the prices are at the same level, and everybody wants to 
have everything) to match the spending habits, a massive wave of 
individual bankruptcies may occur, defaulting some of the banks, and 
forcing the devaluation of the currency, and other maladies, perhaps 
even EU, IMF and other sanctions.

-/-

Croatian War on Drugs:

Croatia became a land of non-governmental not-for-profit 
organizations. This makes it a politically vibrant society. This is 
also a very neat way to avoid paying 22% sales tax on a laptop. Even 
better, some NGO-s are recognized as being of public importance, 
hence they are funded by a special governmental fund for non-
governmental organizations (i.e. from the 22% others pay), an 
oxymoron Made in Croatia.

Perfect example for that is the drug rehab Commune lead by Sister 
Bernardica, an ex-nun who cashed on parental fears and political 
connections. She established a well managed total abstinence (with 
work and prayer) long term program that works fine for about 60 
people annually. She gets nearly 400,000 Euros for that a year. Her 
converts and her are the most vocal proponents of the zero-drug-
tolerance, mandatory workplace and school students drug testing, and 
no alternative therapy to the ‘oro et laboro' approach she started.

Despite the disgust among urban intelligentsia, and some sarcasm in 
the law enforcement community, her program enjoys multi-partisan 
support from left to right of the political spectrum (there is a 
total of 84 political parties in Croatia; 7 of them have seats in 
Sabor [parliament]). The same as in the U.S., conservative Parents 
Anti-Drug lobbies are very strong, and politicians are terrified to 
appear soft on drugs. So the Drug Tzsar, Sakoman, a psychiatrist that 
specializes in addiction, who managed/manages 1600 addicts a year on 
30,000 Euros, fell out of favor, advocating methadone therapy.

There is a danger of awarding to one program such an un-proportionate 
amount of money, particularly if there really is political agenda 
behind the program. Why waste so much tax-payers money on a don-
quixotic crusade?

-/-

But, with all its obvious shortcomings, Croatia is becoming a 
favorite destination to relocate for surprisingly many people.

I have a friend who came back to live in Croatia with an American 
wife. Another came back with a Japanese wife. In Zadar I met a 
married couple, he a Croatian, she an American citizen. Instead of 
him getting his American citizenship through her, she is getting her 
Croatian through him. What an upside-down place the world have 
become.

A Norwegian guy, conscientious objector, came to Croatia, after 
refusing to serve even in civil service in Norway. They told him that 
he may get arrested if he comes back. He returned his Norwegian 
passport to the consulate in Zagreb. Eventually, he got a German 
passport through his father. The interesting, anecdotal, detail is 
that the German passport lists his address in Zagreb.

Cynics may say that it is not surprising that Germans consider Zagreb 
as a German province. After all, 95% of Croatian financial 
institutions are owned by foreign banks, most of them Austrian, which 
in turn are owned mostly by German, Bavarian banks. 

Ivo