Although financial indicators of the performance of the top 400 Croatian companies show that 2004 was on average more successful than the previous year, some analyses show that there are also reasons for caution.
The industrial sector is losing ground to the trade and financial sectors. For instance, growth in the construction sector has slowed down due to less investment from the public sector, said Vesna Trnokop Tanta, an advisor to the chairman of the Croatian Chamber of the Economy, which corroborated in the publication.
Viewed by sector, 141 trade companies are among the top 400 companies, which means that this sector accounts for 36 percent of the entries on the list. The industrial sector comes second with 115 companies listed among the top 400 companies (29.7 percent).
When the rankings were for the first time made by the Privredni Vjesnik journal in 1994, 168 entities from the industrial sector were on the list with only 97 trade companies.
This year, the national oil company INA remains at the top of the list. It posted an income of 16.55 billion kuna in 2004, with exports of 4.64 billion kuna and imports of 9.65 billion kuna.
The second placed is the Croatian Power Industry (HEP), while the 'Konzum' retail chain replaced T-HT telecommunications company in third place.