Croatia sees increase in infrastructure project financing

A number of large-scale infrastructure projects are in the pipeline for Croatia, with the government citing a pickup in transport infrastructure financing. Tomislav Mihotic, state secretary for infrastructure at the Ministry of Maritime Affairs, Transport and Infrastructure, said road, railway and airport projects are in the works in cities across the country. “Since funding from one source is not enough, we are combining all sources available to us,” Mihotic said during the Zagreb Infrastructure Summit. For example, construction of Peljesac Bridge is relying on both EU funding as well as domestic capital.

“Our interest is to link up with China and other remote countries so that they can use our ports as their gateway to the European market,” said Mihotic. “But the general problem is the underdevelopment of all Croatian Adriatic ports, because of total traffic through the Suez, about 8 percent enters the Adriatic, while over 50 percent uses the Baltic. The port infrastructure should be much better if Central Europe is to be interested in changing the existing transport routes. That's why Chinese partners are extremely important to us.”