Chapter 3: Croatia

(continued)

3.7 Assistance and Barriers to Business Development

Business and industrial associations were considered important sources of support to environmental businesses by 64 percent of the survey respondents. Financial institutions were ranked as important by 56 percent. However, as shown in Table 3.19, fewer than half of the survey respondents viewed the government and scientific institutions as important sources of assistance and only a third considered international organizations to be an important source of assistance.

TABLE 3.19: IMPORTANCE OF SELECTED SOURCES OF ASSISTANCE
Institutions/ Organizations	Responses for "Very Important" or "Important"

Business or industrial associations	64%
Financial institutions	56%
Government	49%
Scientific or academic institutions	44%
Professional training institutions	38%
International organizations	34%

The bulk of environmental professionals in Croatia (77 percent) viewed limited access to credit and finance as a barrier to their business development. Tax regulation and market demand for products and services were also widely indicated as obstacles companies face. Environmental regulation was viewed by 42 percent of the respondents as a barrier, while foreign competition was considered a barrier to business development by only one out of five professionals. The perceived barriers to business development are presented in Table 3.20.

TABLE 3.20: PERCEIVED BARRIERS TO BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT
Barriers to Development	Responses for "Major Barrier" or "Barrier"

Access to credit and finance	77%
Tax regulation	59%
Market demand for products and services	55%
General access to information	47%
Environmental regulations	42%
Legal regulations and registration requirements	33%
Foreign competition	22%

REC * PUBLICATIONS * EMERGING ENVIRONMENTAL MARKET 2 * CROATIA