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Selected Presidents of Competitiveness Cluster Associations

The Agency for Investments and Competitiveness has initiated a cycle of strengthening competitiveness by establishing the first three in a series of competitiveness clusters for sectors with the greatest potential in the global market.

These are – the food processing sector, the automotive sector, and the wood processing sector.

The founding assemblies for the food processing sector and the automotive sector have already been held, while the founding assembly for the wood processing sector is expected on Thursday, January 31.

At the first founding assembly of the competitiveness cluster of the food processing sector, 40 members participated. In addition to the initiative committee consisting of Director Damir Novinić and Deputy Director of the Agency for Investments and Competitiveness Slađana Miočić, the founding assembly was also supported by Marija Rajaković, Head of the Competitiveness Sector at the Ministry of Economy, and Barry Condron, a key expert on the ‘Support for Cluster Development’ project as an honorary guest of the founding assembly.

– The main reason we embarked on sectoral specialization and the development of competitiveness clusters arises from the fact of the low competitiveness of the Croatian economy, but also from the previous experience of the EU which shows that the best instrument for strengthening the competitiveness of the economy is precisely sectoral specialization and the establishment of competitiveness clusters – said the Director of the Agency Damir Novinić.

The goals of the Competitiveness Cluster Associations are networking of the public, private, and scientific-research sectors, strengthening competitiveness and creating new added value at the level of each sector, effective use of available funding sources and obtaining non-repayable funds from budgetary resources, EU funds, Community Programs, and other available funding sources, targeted attraction of domestic and foreign investments in each sector, lobbying at the regional, national, and EU levels for each sector, etc.

At the founding assemblies, the presidents of the first two associations were elected, so the president of the Food Processing Sector will be Jadranka Ivanković from Podravka, and the vice president Zvonimir Novak from Euvita. At the helm of the Automotive Sector will be Zlatko Hodak from the Cluster of Auto Parts Manufacturers, while the vice president will be Branko Mihalić from AutoCluster Zagreb.