Croatia Hopes To Strengthen Economic Ties at China-CEE Summit
- by croatiaweek
- in Latest
Prime Ministers and representatives of 16 Central and East-European countries, including Croatia’s Zoran Milanović, have gathered in the Romania capital Bucharest to take part in the China – CEE Summit which starts today…
China’s Premier Li Keqiang will also attend the second edition of the China-Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) which concludes on 28 November. Milanović and the other European leaders will be using the summit to exchange views on upgrading cooperation with China in various fields such as investments, infrastructure, energy, agriculture, tourism, higher education and people-to-people exchanges as China looks to strengthen its strategic partnership with the EU.
China is currently Croatia’s 7th largest trading partner and the number one outside of Europe. In 2012 1.5 billion USD worth of goods were exchanged between the two nations, with Croatian exports to China totalling 49 million USD. Croatia hopes to close the deficit between exports and imports, which last year totalled 1.45 billion USD.
The meeting of Prime Ministers will be followed by the China-Central and Eastern European Countries Economic & Trade Forum. Croatia will hope to develop economic cooperation in the fields of agriculture, infrastructure, transport, IT, tourism and energy with more than 1,000 business people confirmed to attend.
