Croatian President Zoran Milanovic told Canadian Croatians in Burlington on Saturday that the task was to make Croatia a more developed, richer and uncorrupted state to which they, their children or grandchildren would return, his office said in a press release.

“I’m glad to see that you are successful and built a new home here. But I truly wish that your children or grandchildren, maybe even some of you, will return to Croatia,” he said at a reception organised by the Croatian Embassy and Consulate General in Mississauga on the occasion of his working visit to Canada.

“The Croatian state today, with all its problems, is the most ordered it has ever been… We entered the EU and after ten years, the membership is acquiring sound outlines. Of course, it could be a lot better. And that’s our task, to make Croatia a more developed and richer state which will be uncorrupted and strict in respecting rules. And you will know best where your place is. Croatia is always open for you. If you stay here, good luck, and if you come to Croatia, we will look forward to it,” Milanovic said before 200 Croatians from Ontario.

“It’s nice to come to a country which offered a haven to Croatian people when they went looking for a better life,” he said, adding that many of them are successful and have their own lives, but “they are aware that they are Croatians and that they have a strong and unbreakable tie to Croatian history, customs and culture.”

The president also had a working meeting with Canadian Croatian business people. Before that, he attended a meeting organised by the Canadian-Croatian Chamber of Commerce with 20 business people from the Croatian community in Canada.

They informed him of the experiences of investors doing business in Croatia, investment plans, the obstacles investors face and proposals on how to eliminate them and exploit the interest of Canadian investors.

The Canadian-Croatian Chamber of Commerce is one of the more active and influential Croatian associations in Canada which brings together Canadian business people of Croatian descent and their companies and organisations.

The business people emphasised their efforts to bring closer Canadian and Croatian enterprises and to develop and intensify the economic, trade, political and cultural ties between the two countries.

The Chamber is also a significant promotor of the Croatian identity in Canada, they told Milanovic.

“Canada has one of the largest and most successful Croatian communities outside Croatia and the Canadian-Croatian Chamber of Commerce brings together enterprises, experts and organisations with strategic relations, whether economic, commercial, political or cultural, in Canada and Croatia, that have a lot to offer Croatia,” said Ivan Grbesic, a member of the Chamber’s Board of Directors.

“We introduced the president to some of them and some investors of Croatian origin who do or wish to do business in Croatia. We acquainted him also with their experiences. The recurring questions for many years now are: how to utilise the full potential of Croatian emigrants like, for example, Ireland has done, and when the model of immigration with special focus on the younger, educated Croatian generation around the world will be applied. The president agreed to consider some of the questions,” Grbesic said.