Cota spoke about the importance of regional cooperation in southeastern Europe which he said was a set of relatively small and fragmented markets which had ben transformed in a relatively short period from planned into market economies.
The conference, entitled "SEE and EU – Looking Ahead", brought together more than 200 economists and experts. The event was organised by the Croatian Economists' Society in cooperation with the Association of Economists in Serbia and the IEDC business school in Bled, Slovenia.
The head of the Croatian Economists' Society, Ljubo Jurcic, called for finding ways of improving cooperation among countries in the region.
Jurcic said that Croatia had some 500,000 people of working age not included in the labour market and that there were other unused potentials, including raw materials, natural resources, arable land, and that it was not so much necessary to borrow foreign capital.