Context: Recently, the Prime Minister of India visited Croatia. He held official talks with the Croatian Prime Minister to enhance bilateral relations across defence, space, infrastructure, and digital sectors.
Relevance of the Topic: Prelims: Recent developments in India-Croatia bilateral ties; Location of Croatia.
Key Highlights of the Visit
- Defence Cooperation: India and Croatia will make long-term plans for deepening the defence partnership, focusing on defence production alongside training and military exchange.
- Joint Ventures in Space: India and Croatia to jointly work on space technology and projects, reflecting India's growing soft power in tech diplomacy.
- Economic Cooperation:
- India seeks to enhance investment into Croatia’s critical industries like pharmaceuticals, agriculture, IT, clean technology, digital technology, and semiconductors.
- Under the Sagarmala Project, the Indian PM invited Croatian companies to participate in port modernisation, coastal zone development, multimodal connectivity, and shipbuilding initiatives in India.
- Connectivity: Croatia can serve as India’s gateway into Central and Southeastern Europe. Though not a formal stakeholder in IMEC (India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor) yet, Croatia would complement the corridor’s European leg through regional logistics and port connectivity.
India has historical ties with the Adriatic region, further strengthened by people-to-people connections.
Location of Croatia
- Croatia is situated in Central and Southeast Europe, on the coast of the Adriatic Sea.
- It borders Slovenia (northwest), Hungary (northeast), Serbia (east), Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro (southeast), and shares a maritime border with Italy to the west.
- Capital and largest city: Zagreb