For centuries Croatia has been known for its maritime tradition and its shipbuilding industry which has always been competitive on the markets due to its quality and price. As Croatia wanted to attract investment projects with modern technologies and innovations, a project of building ships for export was launched in 2010.
According to the newspaper Jutarnji list, this month two aluminium catamarans that had been built at the NCP shipyard in Sibenik were delivered to the international aquaculture market.
One of the catamarans is 13.75 meters long, whilst the other one is 15-metre long ship, which is the second of this type ever produced in Croatia. Until now, such ships were only produced at Chinese shipyards. The cost of the shorter catamaran was 630,000 Euros, whilst the cost for the larger ship was around 1.3 million Euros.
By the end of this August, two more ships will be exported; a catamaran produced by the NCP shipyard, whilst the other one is a service vessel constructed by the shipyard company Tehnomont from Pula. The catamaran has already been sold to Iceland, whilst the ship from Tehnomont worth more than 3 million Euros will be exported to Norway.
According to the words of Ana Zajc, the senior project consultant at CroNoMar, the main goal of this consultancy company is to connect Croatian and Norwegian companies, identify market needs and facilitate access to new markets in order to strengthen the competitiveness and export potential of Croatian entrepreneurs. She also emphasized that 54 catamarans were built in the last five years worth around 45 million Euros.
''Thanks to the quality of our products and competitiveness in relation to other producers, this project is continuing. Regardless of the type of a ship and its purpose, every ship and every contract are specific and negotiated in accordance with the requirements of the end customer”, explained Ana Zajc.