CROATIAN-GERMAN BUSINESS CONFERENCE TAKES PLACE IN COLOGNE

COLOGNE, Nov 27 (Hina) - A Croatian-German business conference took place in Cologne on Thursday under the organisation of the Federal Association of German Industry and Croatian International Relations Institute. The Croatian delegation, comprising Croatian business experts, was headed by the Croatian Economy Minister, Nenad Porges, and attending the conference were also high-ranking representatives of Germany's industry and banking. In his introductory statement, Porges cited exhaustive information about Croatian economy, as well as the economic cooperation between the two countries so far. He stressed that along with Italy, Germany was Croatia's most important economic partner, which had invested into Croatian economy about DM 1.6 billion so far. The Croatian business people presented the opportunities and advantages of direct investments into Croatia. Representatives of big German companies, which have been present in Croatian economy for some time, mostly spoke about their positive experience, and recommended to others to follow their path and invest into Croatia, as a Siemens representative said. The negative experiences they mentioned were legal insecurity, the existence of a monopoly, and Croatia's resistance to joining certain eastern European associations. Porges said Croatia had good legal provisions, but there were sometimes problems with their application. As for joining eastern European associations, Porges said Croatia "does not want to be a member of any initiative smelling of Yugoslavia," but that it would take part in every individual project of these initiatives, if they were in Croatia's interest. (hina) lm jn 272028 MET nov 97