"This agreement constitutes a new chapter in the internationalisation of Croatian business people's operations and means cooperation with an important institution from which we can learn a lot and obtain important information," HOK president Dragutin Ranogajec said at the signing ceremony.
He said that problems in establishing cooperation with Swiss partners were primarily due to the complex relations between Switzerland and the EU, which are based on a network of bilateral agreements that were not easy to follow or implement.
Reno Iten, president of the Chamber of Commerce Switzerland-Central Europe, agreed that the agreement meant the start of a better cooperation between the two countries.
We would like to make the Croatian economy recognisable in Switzerland. Croatia is currently best known as a tourist destination, he said.
For the Croatian economy to become recongisable in Switzerland, politics should give its contribution, too, events and fairs should be organised in Switzerland, said Iten.
Swiss Ambassador to Croatia Stefan Estermann said that Switzerland invested around one billion euros annually in Croatia and that it was one of the ten leading investors in Croatia.
We are not investing in the banking sector and real estate, but rather in production, which is less visible, he said.
The ambassador said that Croatia had a favourable geographic position in terms of trade and investments, that it constituted a gate towards Southeast Europe and had a good infrastructure, which was why Switzerland hoped that their economic relations would be advanced.
The Swiss economy is one of the world's most stable economies, characterised by highly developed competitiveness, productivity and application of high technologies, the ambassador said, noting that neither the global recession nor the appreciation of the Swiss franc had had any marked effect on the Swiss economy.
Jasmin Devlic, head of the Department for Bilateral Economic Relations at the Foreign and European Affairs Ministry, said that the economic cooperation between the two countries was traditionally good but that there was room for improvement.
After the signing of the agreement, a business forum was held at which lecturers from Switzerland held presentations about legislation regulating business operations in Switzerland, the Swiss machine-engineering, electrical and metal industries and high quality standards. A presentation was held about the Chamber of Commerce Switzerland-Central Europe as well.