The talks were held as part of a new cycle of online business meetings within the HGK’s export promotion platform “Go Global, Go Virtual,” the HGK said, adding that it was continuing this project because of a great interest among businesses.
HGK president Luka Burilović said that Israel had some of the best research institutions in the world, spending about 5% of GDP on research and development and 8.1% of GDP on education.
“Investing in research and development, promoting the start-up culture and introducing new technologies are the factors that make Israel one of the world leaders,” Burilović said.
He expressed hope that virtual meetings would result in concrete contracts and improving cooperation.
Burilović said that the purpose of the “Go Global, Go Virtual” project was for “as many Croatian companies as possible to export their products to Israel and other developed markets, not just because this will directly benefit our economy, but also because our companies will get an invaluable experience in doing business with the best.”
The Israeli Ambassador to Croatia, Ilan Mor, said that the “Go Global, Go Virtual” platform was ideal for strengthening economic relations at the time of the global coronavirus pandemic. This project is the first step in tapping the large potential for economic cooperation between our two countries, he added.
The president of the Croatian-Israeli Business Club, Saša Missoni, said he hoped such meetings would open up new prospects and create new business ideas that would be realised in the near future.
Dan Catarivas, director of the Foreign Trade and International Relations Division at the Manufacturers’ Association of Israel, said that the two countries were not exploiting the full potential of their economic cooperation and that this was an excellent opportunity to change that regardless of the coronavirus pandemic.
Israeli and Croatian companies are quite compatible, and the possible areas of cooperation are broad, ranging from agriculture and industry to tourism, Catarivas said.
Croatia’s Ambassador to Israel, Vesela Mrđen Korać, said she was confident that Israeli companies would find good partners in Croatian companies with highly-skilled labour. Companies from the two countries have an opportunity to embark on joint ventures together on the EU single market and use EU funds, she said.
In 2019, trade between Croatia and Israel reached €90.1 million, of which €50 million accounted for imports from Israel. Last year economic relations were affected by the coronavirus crisis, with trade staying below €50 million in December 2020, the HGK said.
