13. 07. 10. - 11:00

Croatia a 'role model', says Faymann

Austrian Social Democratic (SPÖ) Chancellor Werner Faymann has said he is convinced Croatia will get through the economic downturn.

The chancellor praised the country as a "role model for the whole region" after meeting with Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) Prime Minister Jadranka Kosor in the Croatian capital Zagreb yesterday (Mon).

"Our main aim must be to strengthen the excellent economic relationship in crisis times and fight highly risky speculative activities on the international financial market," Faymann said.

He added: "Croatia has always been an important trading partner of Austria. The economic ties between Croatia and Austria are so strong that I’m convinced both will recover from the blow handed out by the crisis."

Austria was number one investor in Croatia for many years, but dropped to second in 2009 with spending of 420 million Euros. The Netherlands came out top with around one billion Euros spent on businesses in the country.

Kosor praised the talks with Faymann as "excellent" while the Austrian chancellor said it the progress in the European Union (EU) accession talks were also a big achievement of the HDZ chief.

"We’ve always supported Croatia," he added.

Faymann refused to comment on Austrian industrial company A-Tec’s bid for taking over a shipyard in the city of Rijeka.

He said: "I generally don’t comment on business negotiations in Austria let alone somewhere else – so I won’t do so in this case."