The Chinese love Croatian wood and stone, no less than our wine, snails, and dried figs. They are buyers of our medicines, parts for ship engines, electrical transformers, and various other products, writes novilist.hr
This is evidenced by data on Croatian-Chinese trade cooperation, presented during the International Consumer Goods Fair, which lasts until June 12 in the Chinese city of Ningbo. During the past year, Croatia imported goods from China worth 1.4 billion dollars – traditionally, mostly in clothing and footwear, toys, or white goods. We export far less to China, not even three percent of what we import from China, amounting to 41 million dollars. Among the 137 Croatian companies that exported to China last year, leading names include 3. Maj Motors and Cranes, Pliva, Dioki, Boxmar Leather, and others, but smaller companies are also finding their way to this distant country. Among them, 16 are from the Primorje-Gorski Kotar County, and another eight from Istria County.
– The Chinese are everything that our ‘businessmen’ are not – they now pay us what our companies will pay, say, in 2011. They never, ever ask for payment deferrals; moreover, they pay in advance, and if by any chance they were unable to pay for something, it would be an absolute business failure and a personal shame for them, describes his experience with Chinese partners Veljko Brajković, who is responsible for export operations at the Pazin company Kamen d.d. The Chinese, he says, buy Istrian stone in blocks, for which they do not pay customs duties, and their needs for the material are great! In addition to stone, the Chinese also need unlimited quantities of our wood – mostly beech, which they do not have themselves, and which is needed in huge quantities for large-scale furniture production. (www.novilist.hr)
