Opening the renewed exhibition, Plenkovic said that his cabinet recognised the importance of the project and therefore financially assisted in its implementation.
"The smartened up museum will be important for the tourist trade of Makarska," he said.
In his speech Plenkovic praised the local Franciscan monastery guardian, Fra Ante Covo, for his work on promoting "the Croatian and Christian identity of Makarska".
The Malacological Museum, founded by friar Jure Radic in 1963, was opened to the public on April 30, 1963 in the old part of the Franciscan monastery in that southern Croatian coastal town.
The museum has more than 3000 shells in the collection. Apart from the shells from the Adriatic Sea, its visitors can also see many species from tropical and subtropical seas, which have the most interesting colors and shapes among all the seashells.
The museum says on its website that "Fra Jure Radic has also preserved a valuable herbarium of the flora of Biokovo Mountain and some smaller paleontological collections"
The founder of the museum, who was the son of a sailor, was "fascinated by the sea and its gifts since childhood, especially by the seashells he found along the coast and shells of the Croatian islands and of the rest of the world."
"The museum collection includes shells of sea snails, bivalves and a few other mollusc species, as well as corals and a smaller number of other species that live in the sea.
"Apart from the seashells from the Adriatic, the collection also has seashells from other seas and oceans: from Hawaii, Oceania, California, China, Japan, the Caribbean, Australia, Madagascar, Tanzania, Philippines, Indonesia, the Red Sea, Antarctica and the Great Barrier Reef."
Guardian Covo thanked all who financially helped the realisation of the project.
The Regional Development and EU Funds Ministry donated 500,000 kuna and the Culture Ministry an additional 300,000 kuna, while the town authorities set aside 150,000 for that purpose.
(EUR 1 = HRK 7.4)