engleski

An assessment of Croatia's free zone benefits within the international framework

Worldwide, as well as in Croatia, free zones (FZs) are recognized as an important instrument of economic growth acceleration due to the positive influence they may have on the foreign direct investments attraction, exports boosting, regional competitiveness advancement, and creation of job opportunities. The main goal of this paper is to evaluate benefits and contribution of FZs to Croatian economic growth dynamizing. Benefits are here presented in terms of attracted foreign direct investments, in addition to the number and type of newly opened jobs. The qualitative analysis of the data showed that Croatian FZs attracted mainly industries in low-tech, low-skill, and footloose activities, and that they failed to be an attractor for greenfield investments. Furthermore, the number of newly opened jobs is insufficient for affecting unemployment significantly, and for inversion of the negative economic trends into positive ones. Success of FZs is dependent on the quality of the local business setting and leader team, the chosen FZ management model, as well as on the quality of the macroeconomic environment.

free zones, cost, benefits, international arena, Croatia

Knjiga je indeksirana u sljedećim bazama: the EBSCO Pub., Ipswich, Massachusetts, USA ; ProQuest Research Library, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA.