Although its trade with South Korea is increasing, Croatia should do more to attract investments from that country, a conference attended by Croatian and Korean businesspeople in Zagreb on Thursday said.

South Korea’s embassy in Zagreb and the South Korean Business Centre organised the conference in order to foster better relations between the two two economies and connect South Korean and Croatian companies.

Marko Jurcic, a foreign trade advisor at the Croatian Chamber of Economy, said that cooperation between Croatia and South Korea was improving and increasing, adding that the recent announcement of direct flights connecting the two capitals certainly worked to help closer relations between the two economies.

In May, Korean Air announced it would start operating year-round flights between Seoul and Zagreb in September this year, three times per week, making the Korean capital only the third Asian city connected with Zagreb year-round, after Dubai and Doha.

Although Croatia’s ambassador accredited to South Korea is currently based in Tokyo, plans have been announced several times by state officials over the past two years that a new embassy would open in Seoul. In addition, the national tourist board announced it would open a bureau in Seoul within the coming months, after it opened a bureau in Shanghai earlier this month.

“As for foreign direct investment, we must focus on attracting investments from South Korea, as we haven’t been very successful in that department so far, unlike some other countries in Croatia’s neighbourhood,” Jurcic said.

According to the latest figures provided by the state statistics bureau, over the first eight months of this year Croatia’s exports to South Korea reached 509 million kuna (€68.5 million) or exploding by 117.5 percent year-on-year. At the same time, imports from South Korea were worth 917 million kuna (€123 million), or up by 51 percent year-on-year.

“Over the past several years, bilateral trade had never exceeded $340 million per year. Should efforts invested in boosting the economic cooperation continue, I am confident that the trade volume would more than double,” said Jaeheung Park of the South Korean Ministry of Trade, Industry, and Energy.

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