Croatia and Taiwan continued expanding their economic relations, despite the pandemic, and cooperation can be bolstered in IT, tourism, supplies of medical equipment surveillance equipment, cosmetics and food products, a meeting of the Taiwan-Croatia Business Council heard on Thursday.

The meeting was organized by the Croatian Chamber of Commerce (HGK), the Chinese International Economic Cooperation Association (CIECA), Taiwan, and the Importers and Exporters Association of Taipei (IEAT).

Ivan Barbaric at HGK said that the main topic of today’s meeting was smart tourism and IT solutions for other sectors. CIECA advisor Fred P. C. Huang underscored that expanding economic relations between Croatia and Taiwan continued despite the pandemic.

Croatia is a country with a dynamic economy and is recognised for its tourism industry, said Huang.

“Croatia’s IT sector is also quite strong and those two industries have great potential to develop relations between our countries,” said Huang and added that CIECA and HGK keep working on networking entrepreneurs.

Head of the Taipei Economic and Culture Office in Austria, Katharine Hsiao-Yueh Chang underscored that Croatia and Taiwan are natural partners with regard to economies.

According to Taiwanese statistics, our bilateral trade is usually about $50 million. As a consequence of coronavirus, Taiwanese imports to Croatia fell by 19% in 2020 whereas Croatia’s imports to Taiwan increased by 68%. In the first few months of this year, an unbelievable growth in Croatian imports on our market occurred by as much as 237% and that is a figure that clearly shows what sort of potential we are talking about,” she said.

According to Chang, Croatia is a sought-after destination for Taiwanese tourists while hundreds of Croatian professionals work in Taiwan on cruise ships and offshore wind parks.

We are glad to see that the pandemic is waning slowly and this is the right time for meetings like this so we can take up good positions and continue to strengthen cooperation, said Chang.

Secretary-General in the Taiwanese Bureau of Foreign Trade, Ministry of Economic Affairs,  Amelia W.J. Day confirmed that in the past three years, Croatian imports to Taiwan increased drastically.

I am certain that after this meeting we will have better insight in the potential for trade to grow. The sectors we focused on today will help our relations to boom in the post-Covid period. Taiwan has excellent IT companies that can help Croatia to develop tourism based on sustainable principles,” said Day, and in particular stressed the potential in engineering and food production.

Local companies like Infosit, Inter Soft Technologies and the Sibenik Fortress of Culture project were presented to the Taiwanese partners.

Smart tourism was the main focus of today’s meeting while B2B meetings focused on cooperation in the field of medical equipment, surveillance equipment, cosmetics, food products and other sectors.