HUB Director Zoran Bohacek said that the crisis had been overcome with bank support and that the decline in loans was much smaller in Croatia than in most other countries.
Banks were able to finance the state budget and all other needs and enable a credit rise in the private sector and in housing loans in the retail sector, Bohacek said.
The HUB leader said that banks are now expecting high-quality projects as they must take care of risks.
Banks expect a broader economic upturn so that they can find good projects which they can finance, he said.
In order to launch a new investment cycle, the government should remove obstacles to investments and adopt a stable tax policy, Bohacek added.
As regards interest rates, they are high in absolute amounts due to very expensive sources of funds, the HUB chief said.
As regards non-performing loans, he described the trend as still bad but with no indicators of additional deterioration.
According to the latest analysis, banks have attracted more than HRK 16 billion of foreign funds, which has been the most important source of financing since the autumn of 2008.