Croatia will host a summit of the 16 + 1 initiative of countries of eastern and central Europe and China in 2019, Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic confirmed on Friday after meeting with his Chinese counterpart in Sofia, adding that a new page in relations between Croatia and China was opened at the last summit, held seven months ago.
“Today’s main event is the agreement that in 2019, Croatia will host this meeting of 16 central and eastern European countries and China. Croatian diplomats have been working on that since our last meeting in Budapest seven months ago. Prime Minister Li (Kequiang) and I have just confirmed that this will be stated in a joint declaration of all 17 countries, to be adopted tomorrow,” Plenkovic said after meeting with the Chinese prime minister.
Plenkovic is attending the Sofia summit along with the heads of government of 10 EU countries and five EU candidate countries and potential candidates. The first summit of this kind was held in 2012.
This year’s summit in Bulgaria has identified four priority areas for economic cooperation: high technology, joint investments and industrial partnership, infrastructure, and agriculture and tourism.
The 16 +1 initiative is part of China’s One Belt, One Road mega project, a sort of modern-day Silk Road, considered to be one of the most ambitious projects in the world.
In the past seven months, since the summit in Budapest in November last year, cooperation between China and Croatia had been raised to a new level, after China Road and Bridge Corporation had won the tender for the construction of the Peljesac Bridge, Plenkovic said.
“That has opened an absolutely new page in relations between China and Croatia. I believe that that fact and the next summit, when the prime minister of China will visit Croatia, will contribute to strengthening our cooperation,” Plenkovic said.
Commenting on areas for possible further cooperation between Zagreb and Beijing, Plenkovic cited transport, mentioning the Zadar and Rijeka seaports and cooperation in rail transport.
Now is the time, he said, “to make a major step forward in modernising rail transport. We are ready for a partnership with China in that regard.”
Plenkovic added that agreement had also been reached for the two countries to organise various events aimed at cultural exchange during 2019, in addition to the fact that the Croatian Chamber of Economy (HGK) had opened an office in Shanghai and the Croatian Tourism Board (HTZ) would do so too.
In addition to the summit of heads of government, a business forum will be held in Sofia and it will be attended by representatives of more than 250 Chinese companies and 700 business people from central and eastern Europe. The forum, which is expected to draw more than 1,000 people, will be opened by Bulgaria’s and China’s prime ministers, Boyko Borisov and Li Kequiang respectively.
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