Responding to questions from the press at a ceremony in the Croatian Automobile Club about the low level of foreign investment in Croatia this year, Cacic said that this was in no way caused by the present government, because foreign investments had been agreed to previously and were only now being implemented.

The new Investment Stimulation Act is expected to bring about results because it has improved conditions for incentives twice over and has for the first time included tourism and advanced technologies, Cacic said.

He announced that the chief executive officer of the pharmaceutical company Teva for Europe, which owns the Croatian pharmaceutical company Pliva, would visit Croatia in the coming days after Teva had decided that its back office for entire Europe would be in Zagreb.

The decision was made in competition with a country known for very good conditions for foreign investment, he noted.

Cacic said he was expecting to be invited next month to the opening of work on an AD Plastic factory. He said that in this case too Croatia had been selected among several countries and that the new law had played a decisive role.

"Conditions are being created. The formation of the Competition and Investment Agency should be yet another mechanism in that regard", the minister said.

He announced that the Economy Ministry and the World Bank would draw up a program aimed at improving Croatia's competitiveness after the country has fallen in competitiveness rankings.

Cacic said it was quite certain that major projects would provide strong impetus to foreign investment. "If you have a project such as (thermal power plant) Plomin, which is worth a billion euros, where the foreign partner has secured 500 million euros, that is three times more than the total volume of foreign investment so far this year," he added, citing among other major projects the Srdj tourism project in the Dubrovnik area and the construction of an IKEA centre in Rugvica, just east of Zagreb.