The Brad Pitt and Croatia love affair seems to be continuing with news that the Hollywood star is considering constructing a film studio in the country. After the star of Mr and Mrs Smith visited Croatia a couple of weeks back for a flying trip to visit the Dalmatian coastal city of Sibenik where it is believed he will invest into a real estate project comes more breaking news.

“It is true that Brad Pitt has proposed building a film studio in Rijeka,” commented the actor and friend of the Pitt family, Rade Serbedzija. In fact according to reports in the Croatian press it was Serbedzija who persuaded Brad Pitt to invest in Croatia. It appears that Serbedzija, known for his numerous roles in blockbuster movies such as Batman Begins and Mission Impossible II, had already discussed with Brad Pitt the idea of building a film studio four years ago.

Rade Serbedzija

“Brad then I talked about the constructing a film studio in the wider region and I proposed the city of Rijeka,” said Serbedzija. “I told him that Rijeka would be a fantastic choice for several reasons, it is an urban centre but near forests, the sea, island and historic buildings, and he was very interested,” added Serbedzija. The actor has even spoke to the Rijeka city officials about the plan, but no specific location was mentioned. Brad Pitt has his own production company “Plan B Entertainment” Serbedzija has brought many A-list actors to Croatia already including Tom Cruise, Vanessa Redgrave, Ralph Fiennes and Angelina Jolie.

After Brad Pitts recent visit to Sibenik he allegedly described Croatia as “the most beautiful country I have ever seen.”

The seventh annual Dubrovnik Foreign Circle (DFC) second hand sale will be held on the weekend of the 1st and 2nd of October in the Lazareti complex just outside of the eastern entrance to the Old City of Dubrovnik.

The second hand sale, which is being organised in partnership with the Lazareti Art Workshop, always has a humanitarian character and this year the beneficiary will be for “Dva Skalina” an association for children with special needs. The DFC plans to raise funds to assist in purchasing an outdoor wheelchair swing.

And the DFC have asked for donations for the second hand sale, from Wednesday the 28th of September to Friday the 30th of September your donations can be left at the Lazareti Art Workshop. As the DFC said in a statement “We accept adult, children and baby winter and/or summer clothing, shoes, accessories (jewellery, hats, bags etc.), household items (dishes, glasses, vases, paintings, small appliances etc.) As always, items must be in good condition and working order.”

The Dubrovnik Foreign Circle’s mission and vision is to actively serve the community by providing services that contribute to the health and vitality of the greater Dubrovnik Region. The organization’s goal is to provide friendship and understanding between its members and the Dubrovnik community at large by organizing cultural and social events. The Dubrovnik Foreign Circle engages in fundraising activities for the benefit of its community projects.

So save the dates – Dubrovnik Foreign Circle second hand sale 1st and 2nd of October.

Drvene konstrukcije d.o.o. is a small company from Vocin near Slatina in the Slavonia region which will build luxurious wooden apartment buildings for the city of Uppsala, the fourth largest city in Sweden.

The apartment buildings for Uppsala will be made of wood, whilst for the full visual impression they will be cladded by oak facade panels.

''We supply them with laminated structures, laminated oak elements and outer cladding panels for walls, roofs, external staircases, shelves and wine cellar staircases'', said Ivan Durcevic.

Radman Grupa from Zagreb initiated this small company into business with a final buyer in Sweden. Its ''entrance ticket'' for this job was recently completed project of the Pannonian wood competence centre in Virovitica, the building which was a prototype and the first of this kind in Croatia. The centre is a low energy building made of 400 to 500 cubic meters of wood material and one of the first projects which was implemented through the European Union Structural Funding.

''When the Swedish investors saw our centre, they were very impressed. The centre even resembles buildings that have been built in Sweden'', says the company manager Mario Abramovic.

At first only two houses will be built for the Swedish market, but there will be definitely more of them, some say, at least 600!

Last year Drvne konstrukcije d.o.o. exported 10 percent of its products, but the company expects these figures to jump 30 or 40 percent till the end of 2016. At the beginning the company had only eight employees but today it employs 40 people. The average monthly salary for workers is around 3,500 Kunas, whilst the average monthly salary for employees with a high education degree is 6,000 Kunas.

The weather over the past few days has been far from perfect but that hasn't stopped tourists to the city enjoying the spectacular panoramic views from the top of the Srd Mountain. Selfies galore from the observation deck on the upper station of the cable car followed by a bit to eat in the Panorama Restaurant.

Check out our Srd top photo gallery by Tonci Plazibat – Hanza Media

According to Deloitte, the consulting and auditing company, 13 companies from Croatia found their place among the Top 500 largest companies in Central Europe.

Agrokor Grupa, the biggest retail and food company from Croatia, is the best among Croatia's and the Balkan region's companies, ranked as the 11th on the Deloitte annual list. Last year Agrokor placed as the 22nd, whilst this year it jumped on the list with 6.4 billion Euros of annual sales revenue. Deloitte estimates that the consolidated Agrokor Group will generate revenue of more than 7 billion Euros annually in the following years which will place this company among the top 10 of the best Central European companies.

Agrokor as the highest ranked Croatian company was followed by INA, the oil and gas company which placed 53rd, the retail chain Konzum placed 91st, whilst HEP, the Croatian electricity provider was ranked as the 93rd on the Deloitte's list.

The Croatian companies which were not in the top 100 list are the telecommunications company Hrvatski Telekom (232nd), HEP’s Operator company (244th), the distributor Atlantic Grupa (312th), Adris Grupa (318th), Petrol Croatia (350th), the utilities company Zagrebački holding (451st), the food company Podravka (477th) and the retail chain Lidl Croatia which placed as the 484th on the Top 500 largest Central European companies list.

Polish companies have continued to dominate Deloitte's 500 largest Central European companies and accounted for more than one-third of the total number of companies that found their place on this year's list. For the second year in a row Poland’s PKN Orlen was number one, followed by the oil company MOL from Hungary and the Czech Republic’s car manufacturer Skoda which placed as the 3rd on the list.

As far as the Balkan region is concerned, Slovenia had the most representatives on the Top 500 list (17). It is followed by Croatia with 13 companies and Serbia by 7. Unlike last year, when it had four representatives on the list, this year Bosnia and Herzegovina had two companies, whilst Macedonia had only one representative.

''Of all the “megatrends” affecting how companies compete and perform in the regional and global economies, digitalization is the most powerful enabler with the greatest potential for driving positive change. None of us can ignore the extent to which the continued success of Central Europe’s economy is interlinked with the digital strategies of its leading companies. So it is highly informative to read in this report about the passionate intensity with which our region’s business leaders are helping to shape their companies’ digital futures'', commented Alastair Teare, the CEO of Deloitte Central Europe.

The power of social media has really been felt this year in Croatia. Countless celebrities have vacationed along the Adriatic coast and brought Croatia free promotion around the globe by posting photos on their Facebook and Instagram profiles.

And yet another dose of free advertising for Croatia has arrived, this time from Zedd, a Russian-German Grammy Award winning record producer, DJ and musician. In his new video for the song ''Adrenaline'' he will include 30 seconds of scenes from Porec where he performed at the Club MTV Europe Summerblast festival this August, reports MTV.

This is another excellent and thereby free promotion for Croatia. As more and more festivals of electronic music choose Croatia as their destination, such advertising is very important for the country.

Dubrovnik is one of the cheapest travel destinations in Europe, at least according to the website Hoppa, in fact not one of the cheapest but THE cheapest. The specialised travel website took a number of different criteria into consideration before making their list of the top European cities that are cheap to visit, including the price of accommodation, taxis, coffee, food and similar factors. And when all this data was collected the findings revealed that Dubrovnik was the cheapest city to visit in Europe.

Dubrovnik wasn’t the only Croatian city on the list as the capital Zagreb came in at fifth position.

Cheap isn’t normally the first word on tourist’s lips when they think about Dubrovnik, in fact traditionally one of the biggest complaints are the high prices. The website collected information on prices from tourist website, booking portals and other travel websites. Which would lead us to draw two conclusions, either Dubrovnik is not as expensive as we thought or that the data they used was out of date.

Here is the complete list:

Dubrovnik - Croatia

Jurmala - Latvia

Berlin - Germany

Algarve - Portugal

Zagreb - Croatia

Sunny Beach - Bulgaria

Krakow - Poland

Debrecen - Hungary

Rhodes - Greece

Ostrava - Czech Republic

Sofia - Bulgaria

It has been a bumper year for bloggers, journalists and trend-setters in Croatia. This summer Casey Owen Neistat went on a cruise along the Adriatic coast with his wife and released his video on the YouTube profile. After visiting Italy, the couple came to our shores. First they visited Opatija, and then they went towards Dalmatia. Cruising the Croatian islands they were thrilled with beautiful beaches they had only for themselves. The famous YouTuber thrilled audiences in Croatia when he attempted to pronounce the name of the place where he was based.

His video is full of stunning natural scenery, whilst he was especially delighted with the appearance of Croatian cities. The video has already been watched by more than half a million people. Although they lost their luggage, the Neistats didn't let anything to spoil their holiday. The video wasn't edited but realistically shows everything they encountered with on their cruise along the Adriatic coast.

After the cruise, they rented a boat and started the adventure of a lifetime. They visited numerous stunning bays, filmed the beautiful coast and dived into the depths of clear blue sea water. The couple also entered into the famous Croatian cave ''Modra Spilja'' (the Blue Grotto or Blue Cave) located on the small island of Bisevo near the island of Vis. Their lifetime adventure ended in Dubrovnik.

Casey's posts on YouTube are regularly watched by over a million people daily. His YouTube channel is one of the most watched which can be seen from the fact that in a few months more than one million people subscribed to his profile. Casey's video certainly contributes to the promotion of the Croatian tourism around the world. Thank you Casey!