Croatian Minister of Economy and Sustainable Development Tomislav Coric visited Mostar on Thursday and met with the city’s mayor, Marija Kordic, to discuss economic issues, burning issues and the Uborak landfill.
After the meeting, Kordic told reporters that he had discussed with Minister Coric the possibilities of joint cooperation between the Republic of Croatia and Mostar, and the economic fair that is likely to be held in April in Mostar.
Minister Coric said that he was glad that Mostar was entering 2022 with the ambition of further economic growth on the one hand, and growth in the living standards of citizens on the other.
“What makes us happy is that the mayor intends to organize an economic forum in April this year as well,” Coric said.
He promised to continue working on intensifying co-operation between Croatian and Bosnian companies.
“The idea was to present the possibility of investing in the City of Mostar, ie in the industrial business zone of the City of Mostar (…) As far as I understand, the conditions for investment are good here and that is what we are interested to expand its business and I am sure that the response of Croatian companies to this forum in April will be great, “said the Croatian Minister of Economy.
The meeting also discussed waste management, environmental protection and digitalization of the Mostar City Administration.
When asked by journalists what is going on in Mostar regarding the landfill, Mayor Kordic said that they had recently signed a mandate letter to start this year with a five-year plan to adapt the municipal waste landfill in Uborka.
“The idea is to completely rehabilitate the Uborak Budjevci site, and until then we will have to open a new cassette so that we have a place to deal with waste during this rehabilitation period. We are even considering introducing a private partner in the whole story to speed up the whole system,” Kordic said.
He assessed that one must be fast and expeditious so that Mostar would not have a problem with garbage disposal this year.
Minister Coric stated that Croatia is facing similar problems, although the Croatian authorities have significantly higher financial resources at their disposal.
He pointed out that the remediation of landfills is one of the challenges that continue in Croatia.
“What we in Croatia are interested in is cooperation primarily in border areas on water and communal infrastructure, but also those local governments that have a problem with waste management, which can affect the lives of our citizens on the other side of the border,” said Minister Coric.
According to him, in this particular case, the Neretva River is what connects the area of BiH and the Republic of Croatia.
He expressed confidence that in the next period, modalities will be found on how to approach and help solve this problem.
