A two-day conference gathering 40 associations of employers from 35 European countries started on Thursday in Zagreb, Croatia's main employers' association HUP which hosts the meeting said in a presse release.

The meeting is attended by some 100 delegates, business people, and executives from various European employers’ associations. HUP said that they will take part in panels and discussions on “topics important for Europe’s economy and trade relations with other economic powers, including the USA and China.”

Members of Brussels-based BusinessEurope will also attend the conference, including its president, Pierre Gattaz. BusinessEurope, which HUP had joined in 1994, bills itself as the “leading advocate for growth and competitiveness at European level, standing up for companies across the continent and campaigning on the issues that most influence their performance.”

Some 6,000 Croatian companies of all sizes are members of HUP, which collectively employ more than half a million workers in the country, and account for over 70 percent of all revenues in the nation’s private sector.