Addressing the event, held in the town of Zrnovnica outside Split, Agriculture Minister Petar Cobankovic said that it was necessary to plant new olives, restore untended olive-groves and increase the consuming of olive oil which in Croatia is only two litres per capita annually.
The minister announced new measures for planting new 5500 hectares of olive groves until 2007.
According to him, Croatia gets only five million litres of oil from five million olive trees, which means that only six to seven kilogrammes of olives are picked per tree.
Olive growers urged the authorities to help invest in irrigation ditches in olive groves as well as to adopt the law regulating olive growing.