While politicians argue, companies want to trade and cooperate.
The unsolved border issue between Croatia and Slovenia could have an adverse impact on the business climate, and political tensions with Croatia should be avoided – this is the opinion of many Slovenian business people, according to Večer daily from Maribor, as reported by tportal.hr on 9 August 2017.
“Slovenian and Croatian companies cooperate in an exemplary manner, and their business operations are intertwined, so we are particularly interested for passions to calm down and for a diplomatic dialogue to be conducted on the disputed issues,” said Robert Grah, the director of the Regional Chamber of Commerce of the Slovenian Prekmurje region.
This region of Slovenia has an excellent cooperation with Croatia, in particular with neighbouring Međimurje County and Varaždin County just over the border, and the trade is steadily growing.
Exports from Prekmurje to Croatia increased by 30 percent, to almost 70 million euros, last year, while imports from Croatia to the region amounted to around 40 million euros. According to the trade volume, Croatia is nearly as important for Prekmurje as the German and Austrian markets.
“Businesses from both sides of the border are developing close cooperation and they jointly participate in foreign markets, and our common goal is for the free flow of people over the frontier to soon be regulated,” said Grah, adding that both Slovenians and Croats still need work permits for working in the other country. That should change next year.
For entrepreneurs and producers from the north-eastern and Pannonian part of Slovenia, Croatia is very attractive for the placement of food and agricultural products, given the development of tourism. Due to the use of European cohesion funds, Croatia is also interesting for Slovenian construction companies wishing to participate in tenders. In addition, the Radenska mineral water is slowly returning to the Croatian market. A few years ago, it was acquired by the Czech company Kofola.
The Panvita food company is very pleased with the market reaction to its meat products and barbecue foods which are selling great during the summer season. “Slovenian sliced salami and sausages are also very popular in Croatia, and we produce many retail brands for other clients, especially chicken sausages. In this segment, Croatia is our most important market,” said a Panvita representative while discussing their cooperation with Croatia, adding that political tensions with the neighbouring state should be avoided since they could have effects on the economic relations between the two countries as well.
Translated from tportal.hr.
