Croatian Prime Minister, Andrej Plenkovic, will pay a working visit to China on November 2-6, during which he will meet Chinese Premier Li Keqiang and other senior state officials to discuss cooperation between the two countries and within the CEEC-China (16+1) format which involves 11 EU members and 5 Balkan countries.

Plenkovic will start his visit in Beijing, where he will meet with his host, Premier Li Kequiang, and other Chinese officials and businesspeople. The meetings are expected to “reaffirm the good relationship and intensive political dialogue” between the two countries, a government press release on Wednesday said.

In 2019, Croatia will host a meeting of the 16+1 initiative which promotes economic cooperation between the world’s second largest economy and 15 countries in Central and Eastern Europe.

Plenkovic and Li have met several times in the last two years, including at the 16+1 summit in Sofia in July this year, and at the ASEM summit in Brussels in October.

After Beijing, Plenkovic will visit the city of Hangzhou in eastern China on November 3, to meet with the Governor of Zhejiang province, Yuan Jiajun.

He will also visit the 36-kilometres-long Hangzhou Bay Bridge accompanied by Lu Shan, the CEO of the China Road and Bridge Corporation (CRBC), the company currently building the Peljesac Bridge in southern Croatia.

Plenkovic will then travel to Shanghai, the world’s largest port, where he will join a number of world leaders and Chinese President Xi Jinping to attend the opening of the China International Import Expo (CIIE) trade fair, with more than 2,800 companies from around the world taking part in the event.

During his stay in Shanghai, Plenkovic will appear on a panel discussing the trade and innovations, and will also open the Shanghai bureau of Croatia’s national tourist board.

In 2017, Croatia’s trade deficit with China amounted to $652 million, up by $90 million from 2016. However, Croatia’s exports to China also rose, by 50 percent year-on-year, to $125 million in 2017.

The number of Chinese tourists visiting Croatia is also increasing. In 2016, they accounted for 216,000 arrivals and 315,000 bed nights in the country, up by 43 percent and 42 percent compared to 2015.

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