BRATISLAVA, July 10, (WEBNOVINY) — Slovak President Ivan Gasparovic will depart for a two-day state visit to Croatia on Wednesday, July 11. He is scheduled to meet with his Croatian counterpart Ivo Josipovic, Prime Minister Zoran Milanovic and Deputy Speaker of Parliament Josip Lek.
Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Affairs Minister Miroslav Lajcak, Economy Minister Tomas Malatinsky and a group of local business leaders will accompany the president to Croatia. The head of state will open a joint economic forum that aims to contribute to boosting trade and economic cooperation between the two countries. On the second day of his visit, Gasparovic will visit the city of Pula in Istria, where he will meet representatives of the city and the county as well.
Economic cooperation does benefit sufficiently from the above-standard level of political relations between Bratislava and Zagreb. Since 2000 until now, mutual trade more than tripled and exceeded the pre-crisis level already last year. Over the past five years, Slovakia has had a considerable positive trade balance with Croatia. Slovakia’s export to Croatia makes up 0.38 percent of its exports, while the share of imports from Croatia is 0.14 percent of Slovakia’s total imports.
SITA