Deputy Governor Chen Xiangqun,
State Secretary Mr. Zdenko Lucic,
Vice-President of Croatian Chamber of Economy,
Ladies and gentlemen,
Good Afternoon!
It is my honor to participate in the China (Liaoning)-Croatia Business Forum. At the outset, please allow me to extend on behalf of the Chinese Embassy to Croatia my sincere congratulations to this event and warmest greetings and welcome to all the participants to this forum and to Liaoning delegation led by Hon deputy governor Chen!I also wish to take this opportunity to express my appreciation to Croatia government and the Croatia Chamber of Economy for your hospitality and warm reception extended to Liaoning delegation.
Liaoning Province, situated in Northeast China, is a very important province with strong industrial base and rich historic and cultural heritage. As you all know that we just celebrated the 70th anniversary of the founding of the people's Republic of China, the New China. We are so proud of the great achievements accomplished by the New China. Liaoning Province is regarded the "Eldest Son of the People's Republic", which means it made significant contribution to the construction of the New China and is highly respected, enjoying a distinguished status in the hearts of the Chinese People. Now, Liaoning Province,grasping the opportunities of China's another round of reform and opening up, actively participates in the construction of the Belt and Road Initiative and China-CEEC (17+1)cooperation and push forward to its high quality development and structural reform.
I am very pleased that Liaoning delegation comes to Croatia at a time when we are faced with huge opportunities for furthering our pragmatic co-operations in all areas. China and Croatia bilateral relationship has been enjoying a strong momentum of development and has entered a diamond period. Our traditional friendship and political ties have been greatly strengthened based on mutual respect,equality and mutual benefit. Besides the frequent high level state leaders' visits, there are more and more people-to-people exchanges of different levels including local governments growing communications.
Fruitful results have been made in bilateral trade and investment over the past years. The trade reached close to one billion EURO last year,an annual increase of 16.2%.The export from Croatia to China was increased by 25.0%. Meanwhile,Chinese investment in Croatia has been growing rapidly. Over the past two years,Chinese companies have invested ,by setting up factories and joint ventures in areas of producing automobiles, high pressure power plugs and assembling aircraft parts etc. Now More and more Chinese companies are coming to Croatia to seek opportunities for cooperation, encouraged by the above-mentioned projects, particularly by the Pelješac Bridge project with China Road and Bridge Corporation and the Senj wind farm project by Norinco international, which is now under construction with a total investment of about 200 million US dollars and the largest wind power project in Croatia. We are also happy to see some Croatian companies made investment in China, manufacturing measurement transformer, and power train for new energy vehicles, etc.
We welcome and look forward to more cooperation in the future. As far as I know, there will be great potentials for cooperation not only in agriculture, infrastructure, manufacturing, digital economy, health care, energy, logistics and finance, but also in tourism. Liaoniong is also a province with many tourist attractions.I am confident more and more tourists from Liaoning would like to come to beautiful Croatia and our Croatia friends are most welcome to visit China. It is my sincere hope our friends from Liaoning and Croatia will seize the golden opportunities to bring more and more benefits to both sides .
I believe our friends from Liaoning will share more information later. I am fully confident that through the joint efforts by both sides, the cooperation between Croatia and Liaoning will have bright future. My Embassy will work together with you to promote this important ties .
Finally, I wish the Forum a great success!
Thank you all!