Case Study of Institutional Assessments in the FDI Environment in Croatia

The aim of the paper is to present the findings and results of research and analysis done in the framework of the CARDS project generally dealing with the development of the business and investment climate in the Republic of Croatia and more specifically dealing with the assessment and activity analysis of the investment development stakeholders.In its first part, the paper gives a broad overview of some of the factors of investment and business environment important for the topic of 'institutional co-existence'. In its second part, the paper presents the ranking of Croatia and more information on the progress made in the EU accession process. The third part presents the findings related to the institutional assessment of investment policy stakeholders having their stake in the formulation of the FDI policy in Croatia. It presents in-depth the institutional and policy aspect of the regulation of business environment which covers the Ministry for Economy, Labour and Entrepreneurship (MELE), Trade and Investment Promotion Agency (TIPA) as well as the regional development agency and others (such is one stop shop concept – HITRO.HR). Nevertheless, the roles, responsibilities, strategic goals and instruments are not clearly defined while the strong horizontal and vertical co-ordination between the various stakeholders is missing.Having the overview of the state of affairs and based on the examples from the good practices such are Czech Republic or United Kingdom as well as the activity analysis recommendations in the fourth part of the paper, in its fifth part the authors outline recommendations related to strengthening of the investment environment in Croatia and their impact at the general competitiveness score