Russian Agriculture Minister Dmitry Patrushev said on Friday that Croatia was one of Russia's "fundamental partners in the EU."

Speaking after the tenth session of the intergovernmental Croatian-Russian commission for economic, scientific and technical cooperation, Patrushev said he was glad that despite the pandemic, the Croatian and Russian sides were meeting face to face.

He said the working group’s work was successful, that a broad dialogue was held, and that he saw there were a number of cooperation areas.

Patrushev said Russia and Croatia cooperated the most in energy, infrastructure, healthcare, and education, and that the potential to cooperate in agriculture was high.

This year’s trade doubled on the preceding period, so we can conclude that the potential for advancing relations is big, he said.

Both sides are interested in agriculture, he said, expecting a higher volume of trade in this field.

Patrushev said they also talked about possible cooperation in fighting the pandemic and agreed that the relevant state institutions should work on the mutual recognition of vaccination certificates.

Croatian Economy Minister Tomislav Coric said the meeting focused on bilateral relations as well as on topics of concern for the commission. He added that economic cooperation was good and had the potential to grow.

He said they talked about intensifying trade and that next year, on the 30th anniversary of its independence, Croatia would organise a large economic forum in Russia.

He voiced confidence that there will be opportunity to discuss visits planned for next year, including that of Croatian Foreign Minister Gordan Grlic-Radman to his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov in January.