Economy Minister Darko Horvat on Monday announced a "radical turnaround" in the government's policy to attract investments, including stepping up activities to more actively look for investors, as well radically cutting red tape.

Horvat said this ahead of meeting a delegation of leading Japanese companies on a working visit to Croatia, to take place as part of events marking the 25th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Croatia and Japan.

The Japanese delegation includes mostly executives from European subsidiaries of various Japanese companies, such as Mizuho Bank, Mitsubishi, Itochu corporation, Hino Motors Europe, Yokogawa Europe, Kajima Europe, Japan Tobacco International, Mitsui & Co, and others.

The three-day visit was organised by the Economy Ministry, the Japanese Embassy in Croatia, and the regional office of the Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO) and the main purpose of the visit is to present Croatia’s business environment and investment potential to Japanese investors.

Commenting on the announced turnaround in Croatia’s investment policy, Horvat said that “we will no longer sit and wait for investors to come here, but will look for them around Europe and the rest of the world.”

Horvat said that he wanted to inform Japanese executives that Croatia is more than just a tourist destination,having invested considerable resources into the development of its business infrastructure over the past 26 years, establishing many industrial locations and enterprise zones.

He said that he also wanted to acquaint them with the regions where property-rights relations, project documentation and other documents were dealt with very quickly, noting that he was confident that in the next few years Japanese companies would start making significant investments in Croatia.

As for administrative obstacles, he said that there were many, and that a more radical approach to that problem should be adopted.

“We want to make Croatia attractive for domestic and foreign investments so that it could be recognised internationally as an innovative and promising country,” said Horvat.

He said that in 2017 the value of Croatian exports to Japan rose by 57 percent year-on-year to €51 million, while imports from Japan dropped 15 percent to €27.4 million.

Croatia’s exports to Japan include wine, olive oil, truffles, high-quality wood and some other products, but in modest quantities.

“Apart from energy projects such as the liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal on the Adriatic island of Krk, Croatia would like to get Japanese investors interested in other infrastructure projects such as the Port of Rijeka, and its container terminal,” Horvat said, adding that the terminal at the northern Adriatic city of Rijeka, along with the European transport corridor 5C which starts at the southern port of Ploce, could be a convenient entry point for Japanese goods heading towards Central and South European markets.

Japanese Ambassador to Croatia, Keiji Takiguchi, said that the economic relations between the two countries were currently not very active and that both sides should make efforts to strengthen them.

Unfortunately, there are not many examples of investments by Japanese companies in Croatia and most Japanese companies do not recognise the advantages of investing in Croatia, Takiguchi added.

He added that around 1,000 Japanese companies do business in Central and Eastern Europe, and that about 300 of them operated manufacturing plants. Most of them are located in Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia. Although a couple of dozen Japanese companies are present in Croatia, none of them have any manufacturing plants in the country.

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