ZAGREB, Dec 5 (Hina) - Although burdened with some unsolved political issues, economic relations and trade between Croatia and Slovenia have been improving steadily and this year Slovenia accounted for almost 50% of Croatia's
investments abroad.
ZAGREB, Dec 5 (Hina) - Although burdened with some unsolved
political issues, economic relations and trade between Croatia and
Slovenia have been improving steadily and this year Slovenia
accounted for almost 50% of Croatia's investments abroad. #L#
This bears witness to a significant increase in the interest of
Croatian exporters in doing business on the Slovene market,
Assistant Economy Minister Olgica Spevec said at a meeting of
Croatian and Slovene business people in Zagreb on Thursday. The
meeting, organised by the Croatian-Slovene Business People Club
and the two countries' embassies, pooled more than 100
participants.
Spevec described the countries' economic cooperation as good, and
stressed the importance of Slovenia's assistance in the process of
Croatia's admission to the CEFTA. Depite this year's drop in the
export of oil products to Slovenia, Croatia has been recording a
permanent increase in the export of furniture and other final
products to Slovenia, Spevec said, calling on Croatian companies to
carefully follow developments regarding Slovenia's admission to
the European Union (announced for the first half of 2004), as it
would open the door to the western European market to all companies
doing business in Slovenia.
The participants concluded during a discussion called "From Trade
to Partnership" that the two countries should work more on the
establishment of partnership relations, particularly with regard
to the third markets. They stressed the possibility of improving
cooperation in tourism, the provision of intellectual services and
investments in technologically advanced production.
According to data presented at the meeting, bilateral trade in this
year's first nine months totalled almost US$950 million, which is
almost five percent more than in the same period last year.
Slovenia's experts to Croatia accounted for US$672 million of the
amount, which is a 10% increase compared to last year, while
Croatia's exports to Slovenia dropped by 7.7% to 277 million.
A total of 136 Slovene companies do business in Croatia currently,
their number having doubled since 2000, while around 40 Croatian
companies are operating in Slovenia.
(hina) rml sb