02.12.2019.
The conference organised by the Croatian Wood Cluster gathered the members of business, political and academic communities, and the representatives of the European bioenergy association – Bioenergy Europe, EPC-a (European Pellet Council) and the European ROSEWOOD Network.
“We are blessed with quality wood, and we have the obligation to safeguard and use it properly. Tourism and wood industry are inseparably intertwined, and it is important for the overall Croatian economy for these two sectors to collaborate,” said county mayor Nikola Dobroslavić in his welcome speech.
Projects manager Nirvana Franković Mihelj, PhD, represented the Environmental Protection and Energy Efficiency Fund at the conference. She mentioned the current debate on the long-term low-carbon strategy and the goal of achieving a climate-neutral European Union by 2050. She also pointed out that the European Commission announced the presentation of the first EU climate act that will include climate neutrality by 2050, and establishing of the fund for a new fair transition to a low-carbon economy.
“The Fund is investing considerable resources in achieving these goals, and according to the proposal for the 2020 financial plan with projections for 2021 and 2022, it is planned to spend around 1.6 billion kunas per year for the measures which should contribute to these goals,” said Mrs Franković Mihelj.
One of the participants in the conference was the head of Vukovar-Srijem County, Božo Galić, who referred to considerable raw material stock in Vukovar-Srijem County. “We want to keep the wood in our county and create new chains of added value. The ROSEWOOOD project is a successful example of using European funding, and we are satisfied with the work of the competence centre Centar kompetencija d.o.o., which cooperated on this project with numerous partners,” concluded Galić.
In the discussions on the topics, presentations and panels, solutions were proposed to many challenges faced by the wood-processing sector, and exchange of experiences regarding the application of innovations in the sector, and the conference produced answers, and important guidelines for the upcoming period.
The president of the Croatian Wood Cluster, Stjepan Vojinić, concluded: “The real value of this conference are the innovations which give us the opportunity to hop on the train with the competition from the EU and the region. We often say that wood comes first, that it is our treasure, our oil, but these are just empty words if no additional efforts are made, not only by company owners, but also by other state institutions”.
