April the 1st, 2022 - The Belgian company DW Reusables has taken over the Zagorje company Strazaplastika in a move that will see it expand further across Croatia.

As Poslovni Dnevnik/Jadranka Dozan writes, DW Reusables, one of the leading companies for the production of reusable packaging, specialising in tailor-made solutions that require the development of molds, has officially confirmed that it has successfully completed the acquisition of the Zagorje company Strazaplastika.

This large Belgian-based company will as such expand its business operations across the Republic of Croatia; it already owns the former Kaplast, and in addition to Belgium and Croatia, it also has production sites in Spain and Poland.

The Zagorje company Strazaplastika, on the other hand, with its 227 employees, in addition to production in Hum na Sutli in Zagorje, also has plants in Macedonia (Probistip) and in Serbia (Subotica).

Growing demand

DW Reusables' latest acquisition will further strengthen its already impressive product portfolio, and in addition to, for example, crates, pallets and reusable containers for the beverage industry, their expanded range includes products such as drawers, bags and carriers for the food, agricultural, construction or automotive markets.

The new owners of the Zagorje company Strazaplastika believe that this acquisition will increase their capacities and encourage further development of the great potential of reusable packaging for customers across the rest of Europe, Africa, Asia and North and South America.

“We see this as a great opportunity to further develop and expand our product portfolio. With the growing demand for reusable packaging, the extra capacity is coming at the right time and will help us meet the demands of our customers around the world,'' stated Paul Baeyens, the CEO of this Belgian company, adding that the good prospects of the company are supported by the growing need to care for the environment, and he especially emphasised the advantages of "Loop Ready Packaging". It's worth mentioning that the company is owned by the private investment company Olympus Pertners, which is based across the Atlantic in the United States.

Low indebtedness as a feature

According to the latest available annual report, this company for the processing and trade of plastics (in 2020) generated more than 107 million kuna in total revenue, which in the first pandemic-dominated year compared to 2019, with the same level of tonnage production of plastics, achieved a slight increase in revenue of one percent.

As expenditures were reduced by nine percent at the same time, significantly higher net profit growth (11.5 versus 3.5 million kuna) was ultimately reported. One of the characteristics of this Zagorje-based company is its relatively low level of indebtedness.

Last year, the company's administration pointed out that a 20 percent higher realisation was planned for 2021 compared to 2020, and as a result of further automation and robotisation, they projected productivity growth of about three percent.

The plan was to generate approximately one-fifth of their revenue through new products and new customers. Within various production technologies such as so-called injection molding and extrusion, on the company's website the product range is divided into groups; from crates and stretchers (for bottles, fruits and vegetables, etc.), to straws and tubes, as well as a plastic battery programme.

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ZAGREB, 3 June 2021 - Irish Ryanair on Wednesday started operating a new route between Zagreb and Brussels Charleroi, which is scheduled twice a week, and the same airline announced the launch of several other flights from Zagreb, with ticket prices from €19.99, Zagreb Airport (MZLZ) has said.

The flight to Milan Bergamo launches on 17 June, and the flights to Gothenburg, London Stansted, and Rome Ciampino will be available from 23 July, when the first Ryanair airplane will be based in Zagreb.

The full Ryanair flight schedule from Zagreb for summer 2021 will be available from September, when the second airplane will be based in Zagreb and nine new routes will open to Germany, France, Norway, Sweden, and Montenegro.

Ryanair's Sales and Marketing Manager for Central and Eastern Europe and the Balkans, Olga Pawlonka, said that she was pleased that her company had officially marked the first flight for Zagreb on the Brussels Charleroi route.

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January 31, 2021 – A Croatian plane made an irregular landing in Belgium last night. All of the evening's flights to Antwerp airport were diverted to Maastricht airport following the incident.

A Croatian plane belonging to Jung Sky, a private airline based in the Croatian capital, Zagreb, last night made an irregular landing at Antwerp International Airport. The plane overshot the runway and ended up on grassland which lies at the rear of the allocated point of landing. The plane was carrying one passenger and two crew members at the time. Thankfully, nobody was injured.

Pictures posted on Twitter by Amsterdam-based journalist Menno Swart look to show that the plane's landing gear buckled under the stress of landing on the rough surface. The accident happened at 20 hours and 57 minutes local time.

De eerste foto’s! Zakenjet van Jung Air glijdt van de baan op @AntwerpAirport ?? Landingsgestel niet zichtbaar, oorzaak nog niet bekend ?
9A-JSC ??
Cessna CitationJet CJ2 #avgeek #avgeeks #incident #safety #planespotting pic.twitter.com/eVKLSBIkKO

— Menno Swart (@MennoSwart) January 30, 2021

Following the landing of the Croatian plane, all subsequent flights scheduled to land last night at Antwerp International Airport were diverted to Maastricht Aachen Airport. The Belgian Civil Aviation Agency has launched an investigation into the incident involving the Croatian plane.

According to the Croatian portal Index, Jung Sky was founded in 2009 and its private fleet consists of two Cessna 525A CJ2 jets that travel to destinations across Europe and North Africa. They annually operate more than 1,200 flights to more than 200 different airports in 40 different countries.

One of the two Cessna 525A CJ2 jets in the Jung Sky fleet. The private airline is based in Zagreb  © Jung Sky

The flights are performed by a two-member crew, a crew captain and a co-pilot. The company's airbase, as well as its headquarters, are located in Zagreb.

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October the 8th, 2020 - The Belgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has published a ''coronavirus map'' which showcases the rate of infection in European countries. Despite Croatia having been placed on the red lists of many countries, it appears that two Croatian regions in particular are doing well when compared to not only the rest of the country, but the rest of the continent.

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 7th of October, 2020, the Belgian ''coronavirus map'' acts as yet another confirmation of the fact that the beautiful region of Istria is not only the best in Croatia in the fight against the spread of the new coronavirus, but it is also among the best in all of Europe, local Istrian portal Glas Istre writes.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of Belgium has published a map of Europe divided into green, light orange, dark orange and red areas. Of all the regions in Europe, only eleven of them are in the lucky colour - green. These are one region in Sweden, four in Poland, two in Bulgaria, two in Italy (Marche and Calabria) and two in Croatia, more precisely Istria and Varazdin counties.

Most of the other Croatian regions are in orange on Belgium's coronavirus map, and in the unfortunate colour of red are the counties of Split-Dalmatia, Karlovac, Lika-Senj and Pozega-Slavonia. Belgium has no travel restrictions, but, depending on the colour, travel is either recommended or not recommended unless necessary. However, returning from the red areas involves testing and quarantine, and this isn't the case when returning to Belgium from any of the others.

Within Croatia, Istria has the fewest cases, in the last 14 days only cumulatively around 6 new cases per 100,000 inhabitants, which is excellent indeed.

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