Those 28 domestic companies have signed an agreement on establishing their permanent consortium, which means that they became members of the Croatian river shipbuilding cluster.
The cluster was promoted on Thursday by the Croatian Employers' Association (HUP) in Zagreb.
In the first period upon its establishment, the cluster will help provide services for the overhauling river vessels. In the next period it will help create conditions for forming shipyards for building river vessels.
These activities will be financially supported by the HUP association, the Croatian Economy Ministry and the European Commission.
Croatia has only one slipway on the bank of the Sava River to offer services such as ship overhaul, technical inspection and maintenance. The Galdovo slipway overhauls several river vessels annually. The cluster plans to enable the overhaul and technical inspection of a few tens of vessels annually.
In Croatia, inland waterway transport covers a mere 1.5 percent of the annual transport of goods, and in the European Union, this mode of transport accounts for 25 percent of the entire annual transport of goods.
The aim of the cluster is to clean inland waterways and to increase the inland waterway transport to 10 percent annually in the next five years.