The Forum was organised by the Croatian Employers' Association, the Croatian Chamber of the Economy and the Central State Administrative Office for e-Croatia.
Opening the event, Prime Minister Sanader spoke about his cabinet's projects including e-Croatia, the One-Stop Shop (or Hitro.hr in Croatian), and the campaign aimed at Regulatory Guillotine (Hitrorez in Croatian).
He called on the gathered entrepreneurs to apply ICT to a wider extent in their business activities, and also promoted positive sides of associations and establishment of clusters so as to ensure a more successful appearance on the European Union market.
The chief of the European Commission's Delegation to Croatia, Vincent Degert, presented Europe's Information Society policy.
Commending the Croatian government for its efforts to computerise the public administration, Degert also spoke about the importance of the establishment of an open electronic communications market.
When it comes to the ICT sector, in Croatia investments in PCs prevail, while investments in applications and the supporting services still lag behind.
According to a survey made by the Employers' Association, in Croatia the added value from the ICT industry is 18 euro per 1,000 citizens, in Slovenia it is 329 euros per 1,000 citizens, in Slovakia 42 euros and in Denmark 523 euros, while the average in the 25-member European Union is 329 euros per 1,000 citizens.
The state secretary in the Central State Administrative Office for e-Croatia, Miroslav Kovacic, said Croatia is in the fourth place in Europe according to the number of people seeking business information on the Internet. Croatia is at the top of the list of European countries according to the number of people surfing for news on the Internet, he said.