The purpose of the two-day event, organised by the Croatian Ministry of the Economy, Labour and Entrepreneurship, is the exchange of experience in the establishment and development of business clusters, the linking of existing and new clusters in Southeast Europe, and the presentation of the best EU examples in innovation, development and cluster-related projects and programs.
Economy Minister Branko Vukelic spoke about measures taken by his ministry in the last three years to increase the competitiveness of the Croatian economy, describing the results as excellent.
In the last three years, the ministry spent 400 million kuna for incentives and small and medium enterprises. In 2006, 5,000 small businesses were opened and 13,000 people employed. In the last three years, 40,000 people were employed in small and medium-sized businesses, the minister said.
Business people are granted favorable loans, and the loans granted in the last three years amount to 3.8 billion kuna, Vukelic said, stressing the importance of opening entrepreneurial zones.
The number of business clusters in Croatia has risen from a couple two years ago to 22, Vukelic said.
An advisor for the European Commission Delegation in Croatia, Oskar Benedikt, said that in the past five years the EC had invested EUR 40 million in entrepreneurship and trade in Croatia, and announced that the EC would support the establishment and development of business clusters with two million euros this year.
A business cluster is a concentration of interconnected businesses, considered to increase the productivity with which companies can compete, nationally and globally.