Chongqing - A Croatian delegation led by Ambassador Dario Mihelin arrived in southwest China's Chongqing Municipality on February 23 for a three-day official visit and was on their way back to the Embassy of the Republic of Croatia in Beijing this Friday afternoon.

iChongqing managed to get a brief yet extensive interview with the ambassador himself before he got on the plane, in which he talked about his first impressions of the Chongqing, the rapidly expanding economic and people-to-people exchanges between China and Croatia, the potential cooperation opportunities brought by the Belt & Road Initiative, China-Europe Freight Train Services (Yuxin'ou), and the China-CEEC Cooperation mechanism, as well as the future possibilities of establishing consulate-general and direct flight node in Chongqing.

The Croatian delegation arrived at Chongqing's Jiangbei International Airport from Beijing on the evening of February 23. They then visited the Chongqing (China) Three Gorges Museum, the famous Liziba CRT Station, which gained widespread popularity for passing right through a residential building, the Chongqing International Logistics Hub Park. They held a symposium with the city's port authorities and logistics companies on the following day.

On February 25, they visited the "Belt & Road" Commodity Exhibition and Trade Center. They had an informal discussion with officials from the Municipal Culture and Tourism Development Commission before meeting with Chongqing's Vice Mayor Li Bo at the Chongqing Foreign Affairs Building.

During the last day of their official visit, the Croatian delegation visited the Sinopharm Chongqing Medical Equipment Co., Ltd. in the morning and then in the afternoon, before heading to the airport, had an exclusive interview with CQTV and other domestic media outlets, including iChongqing.

Croatia is a member state of the European Union (EU) and also a constituent country of the so-called "17+1" initiative, which is a cross-regional cooperation mechanism launched nine years ago aiming at boosting the economic and cultural exchanges between China and the 17 central and eastern European (CEE) countries.

Earlier this month at the virtual China-CEEC Summit 2021, Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic echoed Chinese President Xi Jinping's call for greater interconnectivity and more bilateral cooperation between China and CEE countries. "I'm convinced that our cooperation through the exchange of good practices offers us a privileged framework for an enhanced and rapid recovery of both Europe and China in the coming period."