May the 2nd, 2024 – Did you know that exported Croatian wines are 2.5 times more expensive than those imported into the country from elsewhere?
As Poslovni Dnevnik writes, in the wine sector, investments in wineries and equipment have been growing in recent years. Despite that, it’s still necessary to work more on reducing administration, suppressing the grey market and encouraging the stronger promotion of Croatian wines. This was said by the Croatian Chamber of Commerce’s Vice President for Agriculture and Tourism, Dragan Kovačević.
He believes that the aforementioned promotion should be primarily aimed at the placement of Croatian wines abroad. It should also be placed on eno-gastronomy as part of the overall tourist offer”, Kovačević pointed out.
as always, it’s difficult to find the staff…
As he stated, the eno-gastronomic offer is a special form of tourism that helps the branding of tourist destinations and the development of year-round tourism. Kovačević noted that it should not be ignored that the arrival of tourists in this country strongly generates eno-gastronomic consumption, and in the future Croatia must work to increase its overall capacities. At the same time, he warned that there is currently a labour force problem, which is very often a limiting factor in increasing viticultural production.
Year after year, the export of Croatian wines in higher price categories is increasing, and Croatian wines in export achieve two and a half times higher prices than in import. “We have some very good trends and this shows that Croatia’s winemakers have chosen the right path, which is the path of top quality,” he said.
He noted that the Croatian Chamber of Commerce strongly advocates for the creation of an umbrella national marketing organisation that would highlight the authenticity and quality of Croatian wines on targeted foreign markets. That’s carried out through trade fairs and promotional activities under the common brand Vina Croatia Vina Mosaica.
Kovačević noted that all countries within Croatia’s more immediate region with serious wine production have already established national organisations; Hungary (Wines of Hungary), Austria (Austrian Wine Marketing Board), Slovenia (Wines of Slovenia), Serbia (Union of Winemakers of Serbia), Macedonia (Wines of Macedonia). Additionally, these bodies also all carry out very active promotion in the markets that are also Croatia’s main targets.
Agriculture Minister Marija Vučković, recently said that the domestic wine sector has total support of the Ministry and the government, pointing out that over 80 million euros have been invested in the wine sector in the last eight years nationwide. As she stated, various projects were financed – those related to primary production, as well as to processing and promotion.
The rate of use of the Wine Envelope has been raised from an average of 27% in the period from 2014 to 2019 to 100% in the last three years, said Vučković. She also noted that additional funds and new measures are needed to tackle what is most difficult, and that is the planting of new vineyards and the activation of neglected plots. This is the biggest task in the coming period, according to her assessments.
Wine production across Croatia takes place on some 18,000 hectares. The country produces an average of 75 million litres of wine annually. Last year, according to data from the Central Bureau of Statistics, the export of Croatian wines amounted to an impressive 19.3 million euros, while imports stood at a total of 45.65 million euros.
