The event focusing on food and food processing industry has been organised by the embassies of Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden in Zagreb. It has pooled 33 companies from the four countries and 192 Croatian companies in the food-processing and agricultural sector.
President Stjepan Mesic, who was at the official opening of the conference, said that Croatia had to become a country which produced healthy and ecologically clean food which would be the country's advantage on the European Union market.
Recalling that Croatia was still facing the problem of large imports of food and agricultural produce, Mesic said that Croatia should promote business relations with the Nordic countries and thus learn from their experience in that sector.
Croatian Agriculture Minister Petar Cobankovic pointed out that it was necessary to enhance business cooperation between Croatia and the Nordic countries, and said he believed the ongoing event in Zagreb would contribute to achieving that aim.
The purpose of the Zagreb event is to help connect Croatian and Nordic companies in the agricultural and food-producing sectors and attract more Nordic investments in Croatia.
In 2003, the export of Croatian food products to Sweden, Norway, Finland and Denmark came to a modest 4.4 million US dollars, while the imports from those countries totalled 41 million US dollars, with Danish goods making up 70 percent of that amount.
The total trade between Croatia and the four countries came to some 500 million dollars.