Croatia has been placed on the Watch List, the same category as in 2004.
The review's section on Croatia reads: "Croatia will remain on the Watch List for 2005 due to limited progress on IPR issues. Although Croatia passed an amendment to its drug registration law in December 2004 that provided protection for test and other data from unfair commercial use, Croatia still fails to provide coordination between its national patent authority and its central health regulatory authority to prevent marketing registrations for patent-infringing products. As a result, the U.S. pharmaceutical industry reports that companies are easily able to register patent-infringing pharmaceuticals in Croatia. We will continue to monitor Croatia's progress on this issue in 2005."
The Foreign Ministry said this was good news.