The People's Party, led by its candidate for the prime minister Radimir Cacic, sees the Croatian economy founded on educated labour force in tourism and the financial sector. The party believes that industry cannot compete with a cheap labour force from the East.
"As a small country, we can become a regional leader only with highly educated labour force", Cacic said, stressing that education is the foundation of the HNS economic programme.
"Our objective is to increase the number of students by 50 percent during this mandate and our overall objective is to raise the current 16 percent of highly educated labour force to 30 percent, which is a standard in European countries", Cacic said.
Announcing that the country could achieve an eight percent economic growth with highly educated manpower, Cacic said he would request a correction of the current policy. The HNS advocates a stable and simple tax system that will enable a long-term business planning. The party plans to introduce a more just division of tax burden through the introduction of property taxes that would replace utility (communal) fees. Cacic said the party was opposed the taxation of capital profit.