An economic forum was held on Thursday pooling the president of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), Jean Lemierre, and the Special Co-ordinator of the Stability Pact for Southeast Europe, Erhard Busek, as well as CEI member-countries' representatives.
Speaking at the forum, which focused on the European Union's new industrial, employment and development policy, Lemierre said that south-eastern Europe was now more open to foreign investments than before. As a result, the business climate and economic growth have been improved, but some political issues are still on the agenda, he added.
The EBRD president commended the CEI for its role in connecting countries which were admitted to the EU earlier this year, EU candidates including Romania, Bulgaria and Croatia, and countries from the new neighbourhood of the European bloc, such as Ukraine and Belarus.
Croatia's representative at the forum, a State Secretary at the Economy Ministry, Vladimir Vrankovic, highlighted good macroeconomic indicators in Croatia for this and last year, including a low inflation rate of 1.8 percent.
Vrankovic added that the growth of the national Gross Domestic Product would be 4.2 percent in 2004.
He said that over the last 11 years, more than 10 billion US dollars had been directly invested into Croatia. Consequently, Croatia is the fourth-ranked transition country with 2,300 dollars of foreign direct investments per capita.