Zagreb, Croatia is an incredibly entertaining and amusing city to visit. The capital of Croatia has a population of approximately 900.000 inhabitants, and offers plenty of activities. The Festival of Lights in Zagreb is only one of the many events that take place in the city, and it is definitely worth a visit.

Zagreb gets a “warm” atmosphere during Christmas. The Zagreb Christmas market, which won the title of best Christmas Market in Europe or three years in a row will surely enchant you. However, you don’t need to wait for Christmas to experience the beauty of Zagreb lit up.

Market in Europe or three years in a row will surely enchant you. However, you don’t need to wait for Christmas to experience the beauty of Zagreb lit up.

According to the listing of the best international real estate countries to look to, Croatia is on the top as shown the renowned magazine Forbes.

As the Brexit approaches, there is a predictable impact on the international real estate demand. Companies that are currently based in the United Kingdom might start migrating their offices and headquarters to other countries in Europe.

Also, there might be an impact on the local real estate prices, and investors are already predicting and aware of the consequences of this change.

Some Valuable Data Confirms The Prediction

Whilst London, Geneva, Paris and Monaco continue to command Europe’s highest property prices, other cities are emerging as increasingly popular with international real estate buyers, offering excellent investor returns. Our increasing popularity in emerging European markets is testament to the growing importance of international investors in these cities.

Chris Dietz, Executive Vice President of LeadingRE

LeadingRE is a consortium of almost 600 international real estate brokerages in 70 different countries. They provided this data exclusively to Forbes magazine.

What is more impressive is that Croatia, in particular Zagreb, is ranked at the top of the list, showing an increase of 20% on prices. Also, a 30% increase of adverts on the main rental portals, such as Airbnb. And the estimative of 20% of the purchases being made by international real estate buyers.

Blockchain technically started around 8 years ago, but the technology really took off around 3 years ago.

The fact that a number of investors are buying cryptocurrency and chit chatting about them on social events more often, is a proof of this increase.

Why Is Blockchain Attractive?

What is attracting investors to make this move into the blockchain is the idea of not having corporations intermediating transactions and publicly transparent proof of each transfer of units made in the blockchain.

Also, the fact that the blockchain technology eliminates any fees and interest you would have to pay to a bank for example. Reducing bureaucratic procedures also sounds good to the majority of population.

If you once came to Croatia, you know that the country is one of the most wonderful holiday destinations in Europe, perfect for a Croatia road trip.

If you live near and are lucky enough to reach this wonderful country by car, then the news is even more exciting for you.

Large developments and investments, were towards the improvement of the motorways in Croatia, making them pleasant to drive on and keeping them well maintained.

Large Investment On The Main Istrian Motorway

A significant investment of €165 million, to go ahead and improve the motorways in Croatia, happened last year in 2018, in the Istrian peninsula with the Istrian Y.

The Istrian Y motorway is fundamental for the access and mobility in the peninsula. It is responsible for the connection of Istria, with international motorways.

Istria attracts a great amount of tourists that decide to visit the country. Investments in Croatia and improvements easing the access to the region, are extremely important for the overall picture.

The concession of Istrian Y was extended to Bina-Istra till the year of 2032. With the actual motorway improving, the way of payments and charging the users of those motorways are also looking to a future improvement in Croatia.

Know Where To Invest

Real estate price in Croatia is constantly rising, the number put Croatia on the third place of the property price risers of the European Union. In the third quarter of 2018, Croatia came after Netherlands and Malta, with 2.8%.

The avarage of price rise in the European territory was of 1.5%, with some of the most famous holiday destination countries dropping by 0.8% in Italy and and 0.7% in Romania.

However, investors from all the globe are focusing more and more on purchasing or investing in a real estate in Croatia, due to the benefits the country now presents and keeps proving in numbers the potential it has and will have in the future.

Again, the Chinese keep showing interest for Croatia and are willing to make this link even stronger and closer.

This link has started centuries ago, around 700 years. But this time the focus is the coast of Croatia, in particular Rijeka with a China investment opportunity.

First, Tourism

A noticeable increase of Chinese visitors to Croatia took place in 2017. More than 57% tourists flew to the country, putting China on the 5th place of tourists arrivals in Zagreb.

In 2018, the European Travel Commission has approved funds to Croatian and Slovenian tourism authorities for their joint promotion in China.

The campaign was named “Experience Croatia, Feel Slovenia”, the aim of the campaign was, introducing Croatia and Slovenia as the European top holiday destinations they are to the Chinese. The campaign cost was over €200,000, half of which was co-financed by ETC.

Croatia has a massive potential for new technologies and is home of a few major startups that are now global, attracting the interest of angel investors.

Promising Startups

For example Infobip, the first to be mentioned. Started in 2002 by a group of friends and developers in Vodnjan, they fully recognized its potential after it made its first business deal for delivering 14,000 SMS greeting cards to the entire city in 2003.

Currently, Infobip is a global IT and telecommunications company that provides cloud services for business with more than 50 offices worldwide, although one of the headquarters is still in Vodnjan.

Rimac has also a huge role on Croatia’s technology sector development. It was founded in 2009 in Zagreb, by Mate Rimac.

In the next year of its foundation, Rimac designed an electric vehicle that outpowered convencional cars on a race, after that Rimac focused on implementing the technology on supercars and that was the creation of Concept-One model.

If you have a business mindset, think ahead or are looking for an investment opportunity in Croatia, you are looking at the right place and perhaps right time too.

In 2019, Darko Horvat, who is Founder and Owner of Aktiva Group and serves as Head of Energy Directorate at the Ministry of Economy, Labor and Entrepreneurship, Croatia.

Presented measures, in order to reduce or eliminate some consuming administrative procedures that are currently in place. Domestic entrepreneurs, are the ones to be benefiting from this improvement first.

Less admin

The first move, is to eliminate around 314 administrative processes. Apart from improving and speeding those bureaucratic processes up.

The advantage and good news are also that, it consequently reduces misunderstandings or unnecessary payments, that usually or can occur when an individual is presented, or doesn’t completely understand the whole process, or what exactly those payments are for.

Last year, 2017, the data showed the impressive number of 18.5 million tourists visited Croatia with 102 million overnight stays. 

According to Eurostat (Statistical office of the European Union), in comparison to 2016, it was an increase of 13% of visitors to the country. And consequently, the number of arrivals also generated a substantial increase of overnights stays in 2017.

Croatia Tourism In 2018

Croatia is among the top EU countries by tourism results growth. In 2018, Croatia featured on the second place on list of top emerging destination, amongst Japan, Portugal, Cuba and Iceland. Not surprisingly, 2018 in comparison to 2019, Croatia received an amount of 19.7 million tourists. A new record.

Istria Is A Jewel

If you think of Croatia, you instantly might think of the popular spots such as Dubrovnik, Hvar, Split and Rovinj. Although those regions are espectacular and have plenty to offer, the uniqueness and authenticity of destinations that are still not very explored and overcrowded are attracting more and more the attention of tourists. The typical spots and regions attracted a lot of visits, but the winner of all was the region of Istria. 

Investments In Tourism

Having more than a billion euros of investments put into tourism last year, this year the ministry of tourism expects the same amount of investments again to be put into the industry.

Croatia is developing very fast and surprising investors. Tourism and infrastructure are sectors to be developed and that are already on the progress of evolving, currently being funded and developing.

However, lately Croatia has been paying attention also in its health tourism this year, the Croatian Medical Group had as a goal to get 3.8 billion to start increasing the health tourism in Croatia.

Miljenko Bura of the medical group expressed that “Because Croatia is full of natural resources and pure gives the country a huge potential for health tourism also.”

Talking about natural resources

Another surprise is that the country decided to turn their heads to renewable energy. In fact, it has not been for the first time. The nature that Croatia offers is not only beautiful for the sight, there is a lot of potential to be explored and used. 

According to the Balkan Green Energy News, the company HEP (Hrvatska Elektroprivreda), dominant state owned company, on cooperation on the Orlec Trinket solar power plant project on the Cres island, built the largest solar power plant in Croatia.