The Croatian established Blue Economy sectors employ about 136 000 people and generate around €2.9 billion in GVA. The Blue Economy has an extremely positive impact on the Croatian workforce, employing more than 8% of the national workforce. This share has increased on a year-to-year basis (less than 6% in 2020). Croatia has recorded an increase in contribution of Blue Economy sectors to the overall GVA, moving from 3.4% in 2020 to 6.0% in 2021.
The Croatian Blue Economy is dominated by Coastal tourism, which contributes to 77% of Croatian Blue Economy jobs and 80% to GVA in 2021. The tourism sector has almost entirely recovered from the COVID-19 pandemic, with employment and GVA increasing from 66% and 56% in 2020. However, 2021 values are still slightly lower than those recorded pre-Covid (i.e. in 2019, 79% for employment and 81% for GVA).
The sectors that employ the second and third biggest shares of blue workers are Living resources (9%) and Maritime transport (6%). In terms of GVA, these two sectors contribute to an overall 12% of the entire Blue Economy.
In the EU, Croatia is the 7th-largest contributor in terms of GVA and employment for Coastal tourism. Croatia is an important contributor to the employment within Non-living resources (ranked 8th in EU), Living resources and Maritime transport (9th in EU).
The busiest container ports in Croatia are: Port of Omisalj (115th busiest port in EU in terms of gross weight of goods handled), Port of Rijeka (163rd) and Port of Ploce (166th).
In terms of passengers embarked and disembarked in ports, Slano ranked 351st and Omis 368th in 2021 in EU.
Together with Italy, Croatia was part of the Interreg ADRIREEF, which had the objective to strengthen the blue economy through the innovative exploitation od Adriatic Reefs. A further project, InnovaMARE was carried out between 2020 and 2023 with the objective to enhance collaboration on technology transfer.
In the timeframe 2021-2027, Croatia will receive €243.6 M from EMFAF to support sustainable fisheries (46.4%), sustainable aquaculture, processing and marketing (39.6%), sustainable blue economy (13.6%), and to strengthen international ocean governance (0.4%).
