After the lifting of sanction, Croatia is looking to expand its business cooperation with Iran.
Despite the fact that, after the lifting of sanctions, Iran has been visited by a large number of foreign businesspeople and investors from economically strong and powerful countries, the visit by Croatian President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović next week with a large business delegation led by the Croatian Chamber of Economy is expected to be successful and should result in a stronger economic cooperation between the two countries. About 50 Croatian companies will send their representatives to join the President on the trip. Some of these companies are already present in this market, while others will establish their first contacts, reports Večernji List on May 11, 2016.
It is well-known that this market of 80 million people has a great potential. In previous years, politicians and businessmen from Iran said that Croatia was an extremely important country for them, not only because of its geopolitical position, but also because they considered Croatia as a friendly country which had never turned its back to Iran and therefore had a certain advantage compared to other countries.
Even while sanctions were still in effect, Iran was visited by members of former government, Foreign Minister Vesna Pusić and Tourism Minister Darko Lorencin, as well as former Parliament Speaker Josip Leko, which made it clear how important cooperation with Iran was for Croatia. The international crisis over nuclear facilities in Iran was resolved in July last year and in January this year the sanctions against Iran were lifted. Since there are no more obstacles, Iran has become a major regional economic power, and the EU and the United States see it as a major political and economic partner.
For Iran, which has large gas reserves and could take over an important role of gas producer, Croatia is located at an extremely important geopolitical location and could become a distributor of Iranian gas to many European countries. Iranians are interested in investing in an LNG terminal, shipbuilding, petrochemical industry and tourism, while Croatian companies want to invest in infrastructure and energy.
In 2008, INA signed an agreement on oil and gas exploration at 17 fields in Iran, but the project was stopped due to sanctions. Now the company accepted the invitation of the Croatian Chamber of Economy to travel to Iran. It will be joined by representatives of many other businesses.
