"Bigger incentives, lower parafiscal levies and security of doing business. That's the recipe for making doing business simpler and more efficient for business owners in the next two years," he said, adding that they would have EUR 1 billion from the European Union at their disposal between 2014 and 2020.
Maras described Finance Minister Slavko Linic's proposal to write off citizens' bad loans as a good intention, saying that if claims could not be collected, it was much better to relieve people of debts, which he said previous governments did not do.
"Previous governments didn't enable job creation either nor were they efficient in tax collection," he said, urging banks to join in.
Asked if more businesses were closed this year than in 2012, Maras answered in the affirmative but said that when one considered newly opened small businesses, the results were positive. He added that more than 8,000 small businesses had been opened this year and that more were expected to be opened in 2014.
In Vukovar, Maras visited the construction site of a business and innovation centre which is expected to create 1,000 jobs when completed in two years.