May 20 (SeeNews) - The Croatian government aims to increase the rate of absorption of European Union funds to 85% by the end of the year from current 68%, regional development and EU funds minister Gabrijela Zalac has said.
The government has already opened tenders valued at more than 88% of allocated EU funds, Zalac told an EU Open Days event in Zagreb held on Sunday, according to a government press release.
By October 2016, Croatia had agreed EU project financing of just 7.3 billion kuna ($1.1 billion/983 million euro), while now the volume of agreed funding has reached 54 billion kuna, or 68% of the overall 10.7 billion euro made available to the country for the 2014-2020 programme period, Zalac noted.
She also said that since joining the EU in 2013, Croatia has been a net beneficiary of 14.4 billion kuna of EU funds.
"This means we have received more in EU funds than we have paid as membership fees to the European budget."
Zalac also said that 8,000 Croatian firms have so far benefitted from EU financing, while 80% of public investment is also financed from EU funds.
Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic told the same event that Croatia has been in talks with the EU to be allocated some 10 billion euro in the next seven-year programme period, the government said in a separate statement.
(1 euro = 7.42641 kuna)