Although Croatia’s coastal and continental cooperation has been discussed for years, it has not yet reached a level that would satisfy all the participants of that story. Therefore, a working meeting of the leaders of Vukovar-Srijem and Dubrovnik-Neretva County was held in the Dubrovnik Palace of Ranjina, where they discussed establishing stronger economic cooperation between the land and the sea, i.e., the ”green” and “blue” Croatia, reports Lokalni.Večernji.hr on February 6, 2019.
It was concluded that there is room for cooperation in the marketing of products from Vukovar-Srijem County to the tourist sector in Dubrovnik-Neretva County. It was announced that the presentation of these products would be organized at the traditional meeting of winemakers with restaurants and hoteliers. The visit of representatives from Slavonian tourist agencies will also be organized in order to explore possible ways of cooperation and overcome the problems of distance, but also the cost of transport. It was agreed that subsidies would be required for a flight between Osijek and Dubrovnik.
“The main goal of the meeting is to find out what is needed for the hoteliers in the south of Croatia. We want to save our OPGs, so we founded the Agro-Cluster, in cooperation with the County with several municipalities and with the Agricultural Faculty in Osijek and Cooperative ‘Vinkovačka šparoga’. This is our first year and we are heading in the right direction. In 10 years we lost 3000 households. We now operate around 6000. We as the County are doing the infrastructure, and we want to know how we can cooperate specifically here,” said Vukovar-Srijem County Prefect Bozo Galić. He added that such cooperation would save many Slavonian family farms and that they could personally guarantee the highest quality of products in the county.
Dubrovnik-Neretva County prefect Nikola Dobroslavić recalled that Croatia’s “blue” and “green” cooperation has existed for a long time on several levels, but there is always room for progress.
“Cooperating is not easy, you have to work hard on it. Every year we deliver mandarins to Vukovar-Srijem County, and they gave us apples this year. This is, of course, all symbolic, but it shows what kind of friendly relations we have,” Dobroslavić said.
The mayor of the County Department for Tourism and Culture, Marija Budimir, emphasized the wish for Slavonian manifestations and sights to become part of the organized visits created by Dubrovnik-Neretva County tourist agencies.
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