The average grade given by business people for business conditions in 2014 is 2.16, with Privredni Vjesnik editor-in-chief Darko Bukovic saying that business people had given the same average grade for the situation in the national economy in the last five years.
The poll shows that 73.2% of the business people interviewed expect investment and business conditions in 2015 to be the same as in 2014, while 16.6% expect them to be little or much better. The remaining 10 or so percent believe 2015 will be even worse than 2014.
GDP will be roughly the same as in 2014 - this is the expectation of 37.5% of respondents, 17.4% expect GDP to decline from last year and 15% expect it to grow more than in 2014.
Most of the business people interviewed, close to 73%, expect their companies to overcome the crisis this year with more or less difficulty. Seventy percent expect their solvency to remain the same, and 16.6% expect it to improve.
More than half of those interviewed (53.7%) expect roughly the same revenues as in 2014, while 37.2% plan slightly or much higher revenues. Forty-two percent of the interviewed business people expect their net revenues this year to be lower than in 2014, and around 30% hope for higher profits.
A majority of business people, namely 53%, plan to keep the current number of employees, 29.5% expect to reduce the number of employees and only 17.3% plan new hiring.
The survey shows that business people believe that to overcome the crisis, they would need cheaper business loans, followed by cutting red tape and taxes and contributions, as well as dealing with the problem of insolvency and putting a time limit on bankruptcy proceedings.
Answers by business people in the construction sector are highlighted in the opinion poll and they are far more pessimistic than those of business people from other sectors. Close to 60% of companies in the construction sector will try to overcome the crisis in 2015 and 36.7% expect to succeed. However, more than 60% of construction businesses expect the impact of the crisis on their operations to be significant or very big in 2015.
Commenting on this, Deputy Prime Minister Branko Grcic recalled that the debt/income ratio in the construction sector was 170%, which he said was "impossible to survive by anyone".
"The process of restructuring in that sector is deep, comprehensive and will last for some more time. Such a construction sector is dragging down the entire economy, because it was overinflated before the crisis," Grcic said, adding that the construction sector was the biggest problem and main obstacle to GDP growth.
Nonetheless, shy but positive trends are beginning to be recorded, which is probably mostly owing to the integration of the national economy with the EU's, said Grcic.
HGK president Luka Burilovic said that he was mildly optimistic because the opinion poll showed that business people, too, were resilient and optimistic despite unfavourable macroeconomic indicators.
"For decades Croatia has lacked a long-term concept of economic development that would be followed by all governments, and that is our main problem," Burilovic said.
The situation will hardly be any better in 2015, but a macroeconomic framework for long-term growth should be created, which is conditional on structural reforms as well as on reducing some tax rates that "stand out" in the region, such as VAT, and on reducing labour costs, Burilovic said.