Presentation of the Excellent Results of the Investor Outreach Missions

MARIJA BISTRICA, 28/29 June 2011 – The idea behind the final Investor Outreach conference is the overview of results of ten Outreach missions carried out in the period  from February to July 2011, in the framework of EU-IPA project "Development of Investment Climate". This opportunity was also used to provide the County representatives further recommendations regarding this type of approach in attracting foreign investments.  The certificates of participation were also distributed to the members of the delegations participating in Outreach missions.

10 Outreach missions were carried out during the abovementioned period – six in Europe, two in USA, one in Israel and one in Singapore. A total number of 21 participants from 12 counties (involved in Advanced ICPR) and three officials from the Ministry of Economy, Labour and Entrepreneurship and, in several occasions, the delegation was accompanied by representatives from the private sector. The overall cost of all 10 missions amounted to 89,000 EUR, which means an average of 3,000 Euro per person a week.

The Counties selected their target sectors with high added value which are in line with the potentials of each County and 126 business meetings were held with selected companies and organisations. The selected sectors were: automotive sector and aluminium processing, shipment and logistics, information and communication technology, robotics and software development, citrus processing, metal processing, pharmaceutical industry, back-office services and call centres.

The participants evaluated the overall work on this component as extremely successful and valuable, especially taking in consideration the experience and know-how and want to continue with the programme. The first results are already visible and promising – 21 visits to Croatia were agreed to some of the Counties involved in these activities.

About the Investor Outreach programme:
The purpose of the Investor Outreach programme is to identify, prepare and select potential projects in order to prepare the business opportunities identified by the counties for the attraction of FDI. The County teams participating in the Outreach programme were given the task to prepare projects with high value added in order to attract the investors dealing with knowledge based sectors as ICT, high value added services and pharmaceutical and biotechnology sectors. The Counties participating in Outreach campaign: Bjelovar-Bilogora, Dubrovnik-Neretva, Istria, Karlovac, Koprivnica-Križevci, Krapina-Zagorje, Međimurje, Primorje-Gorski Kotar, Split-Dalmatia, Šibenik-Knin, Varaždin and Zadar County.