Through the Maritime and Fisheries Operational Program, the amount of 234.9 million kuna was agreed for 635 users for their projects on seventeen islands in Croatia, while the amount of 176.7 million kuna was paid to as many as 570 beneficiaries.

As Morski writes on the 8th of March, 2019, the largest amount of beneficiaries of contracted and paid funds are on the island of Ugljan, where as much as 27 percent of the total contracted funds for beneficiaries on the islands have been contracted. Given the large number of fishermen on the island of Ugljan, particularly in Kali, the measures that have been taken relate to (among other things) health and safety and energy efficiency on fishing vessels, as well as an additional measure aimed at improving the conditions for product placement on the market, thus achieving a higher price for the products themselves.

''Our fishermen, fish farmers and [fish] processors are well acquainted with the opportunities the Operational Program for Maritime and Fisheries provides, and that has also been confirmed by the growth of the available funds [for this sector] over the last two years. Since the beginning of the implementation of the Maritime and Fisheries Operational Program, a total of 42 tenders have been issued to date, of which 34 have been during the mandate of this government. So far, 47.27 percent of the allocation, or 1.2 billion kuna, has been contracted, and almost 600 million kuna has been paid,'' said the minister of agriculture, Tomislav Tolušić.

Investment on the island Brač is set to occur immediately after the investment on Ugljan. On the other fifteen islands, most of the investments have been directed towards fishing and measures related to it, examples of that are Hvar, Dugi Otok and Cres.

There is also investment occurring in the field of energy-efficient heating and cooling systems in construction facilities for fish processing, as opposed to outdated ''classic'' systems (fossil fuel systems). Money will also be pumped into improving business processes by acquiring new IT equipment and more modern business management software.

Within the Croatian Maritime Operational Program for the Programming Period 2014-2020, 348.7 million euro (252.6 million euro from the EU budget and 96.1 million euro from the budget of the Republic of Croatia) have been made available.

These funds are extremely important to Croatia's fishing sector and as such meets their very specific needs over the aforementioned time period. Within the operational program, in cooperation with all interested stakeholders from scientific institutions, local and regional self-government units, state institutions and entities from the fisheries sector, 36 different measures were covered for the entire sector, from sea and freshwater catches and farming, to the processing and eventual marketing of fish products, to producer organisations and FLAGs.

Make sure to stay up to date on fishing in Croatia and much, much more by following our dedicated business page.

Lopud's stunning Lafodia Sea Resort wows once again, this time taking home a prestigious award. Little else could be expected of this truly beautiful hotel located on an idyllic southern Dalmatian island, just a short boat ride from the City of Dubrovnik.

Winning the prestigious Best Seaside Hotel for Meetings and Events, Lafodia Sea Resort, with more than 150 rooms, showcased its individuality and wow factor. This award means a lot to Lafodia, because the resort has been chosen among seven other hotels some with five stars and chosen by those from within the profession and by people who are the professional organisers of all kinds of event. This welcome recognition means that lafodia Sea Resort is not only recognised by highly appreciated on the market.

The SEEbtm Awards is an awards ceremony powered by SEEbtm magazine, to the best and most prominent hotels and venues in the meetings industry for the current year, based on the votes of the readers, event organisers, and the jury of SEEbtm magazine. The expert jury was made up of 27 representatives of some of the most prominent international companies and each one of them is in charge of the event's organisation.

These awards were established back in 2016 with the idea of rewarding and therefore stimulating positive changes in this very demanding industry and market. SEEbtm magazine specializes in business travel and the events industry in the Southeastern European region, and is supported by the leading regional portal Kongresniturizam.com, which has now been operating for more than twelve years.

Under the expert organisation of the portal Kongresniturizam and the specialised magazine SEEbtm, on November the 15th, 2018, in Belgrade, Serbia, the meetings industry of the region traditionally gathered for the seventh time at the SEEbtm Party, an event which has continued to profile itself as a strong networking platform of key stakeholders in the meetings industry, as well as those in the expert field of event management.

At the SEEbtm Awards gathering, prestigious recognition was given to some of the best hotels and venues in our region in seventeen categories, based on the votes of those who are buyers in the meetings industry, people from the meetings industry from within the region, the clients of the nominated candidates, and the SEEbtm magazine team itself.

What was especially important was the innovation in the voting of an expert jury, composed of the representatives of some of the most eminent companies and organisations which deal with the organisation of events across the region, and their members voted for the best, according to their experience and their valued opinion.

Mljet has been given the responsibility of caring for Dubrovnik-Neretva County's very first firefighting boat, which has been procured thanks to EU funds.

As Morski writes on the 2nd of March, 2019, Dubrovnik-Neretva County prefect Nikola Dobroslavić handed over the first firefighting vessel in Dubrovnik-Neretva County in Dubrovnik's port on Friday. The vessel is named Sveti Florijan, named after the patron saint of Linz.

The vessel was handed over by the prefect to the mayor of Mljet, Đivo Marketa, who immediately presented and subsequently handed it over to commander of Mljet's fire brigade, to Mario Dabelić.

Prefect Nikola Dobroslavić stressed that this is an excellent example of good use of the money made available to Croatia from European Union funds.

''The ship is largely financed by EU funds through a project conducted by Dubrovnik-Neretva County. This is the first firefighting boat in our county, and JVP Mljet (Mljet fire brigade) will be responsible for it, but of course it will be available to the whole of this southern area. Another firefighting vessel is coming to the City of Dubrovnik soon and this is a significant addition to the safety and the possibility of interventions being made at sea. This ship will be used for firefighting on boats, as well as in some other emergency situations,'' stated Dobroslavić, among other things.

Sveti Florijan is the first firefighter in Dubrovnik-Neretva County, otherwise Croatia's southernmost county, area acquired by the southern Dalmatian county as part of the scope of the European project AdriaMORE, which is otherwise one of the projects currently being implemented by the Interreg Croatia-Italy cross-border program.

The project activities of Dubrovnik-Neretva County are worth around 350,000 kuna, of which 85 percent are being co-financed with the very welcome funds of the European Regional Development Fund, and the remaining 15 percent are financed by the county's own funds.

A shipbuilding contract, worth about 950,000 kuna, was signed last September with Damor d.o.o., and, as previously mentioned, the new firefighting vessel will be taken care of by Mljet's fire brigade and by Mljet Municipality.

Dubrovnik-Neretva County organised the ceremony as part of the activities on this year's International Civil Protection Day, which was marked on March the 1st.

Make sure to stay up to date by following our dedicated lifestyle page. If it's just Dubrovnik and southern Dalmatia you're interested in, give Total Dubrovnik a follow.

Most of Croatia's biggest entrepreneurs are located on the northern Adriatic islands, and Croatia's biggest employers are still in the tourism and trade industries.

As Poslovni Dnevnik/Darko Bicak writes on the 6th of February, 2019, according to the analysis of the Financial Agency (FINA), which included details on entrepreneurs operating in the Republic of Croatia, there are 4,322 of them across 51 cities and municipalities in total who work as classified entrepreneurs, and in 2017, the largest number of entrepreneurs were in the field of providing accommodation and food preparation and serving - 903 of them. This tourism sector has now achieved its highest total revenue (almost 2.7 billion kuna), which is 25.6 percent of total income of island entrepreneurs.

Following those in tourism are entrepreneurs in the field of wholesale and retail trade - 656 of them. 2.2 billion kuna or 21.3 percent of total revenues and entrepreneurs are in this field. Construction is ranked third with 472 entrepreneurs and 1.4 billion kuna in revenues, which is 13.7 percent of total income of entrepreneurs from island areas.

In the case of tourism entrepreneurs, these were the highest in terms of the number of employees, with 6,585 employees or 30.6 percent of the total number of employees in all activities. This group of entrepreneurs also earned the highest revenues, and among them, according to the criterion of total revenues, the best are the hotel and tourism companies from Mali Lošinj, Hvar and Rab, or Jadranka hotels, Sunčani Hvar, and Imperial.

When looking at the ''size'' of these entrepreneurs, the largest number of micro entrepreneurs with 92 percent of the share in the total number of entrepreneurs are registered in the observed island areas. In addition, the same group have the largest share in profits, 42.7 percent, and employ the largest number of workers, making up a significant 33.8 percent of the total number of employed people in island towns and municipalities.

There are nine big companies based on islands in the Republic of Croatia, one in the area of ​​trade, Trgovina Krk from Malinska on Krk, one in the field of construction, GP Krk from Krk, one in the processing industry, Sardina from Brač and one in the area of ​​passenger transport, Autotrans from the island of Cres, while the remaining six are in the area of the ​​provision of accommodation and food preparation and service.

Make sure to stay up to date with Croatia's economic, business and investment climate by following our dedicated business page.

Click here for the original article by Darko Bicak for Poslovni Dnevnik

As Morski writes on the 5th of February, 2019, as the Ministry of Regional Development and EU Funds has stated, 39 contracts for Croatian island development will be signed on Wednesday, totaling an enormous 17,430,000.00 kuna, which is less than 450,000 kuna per individual project on average.

The Ministry argues that the goal of their Croatian island development program is to create the necessary preconditions for sustainable economic and social development by enhancing the quality of life on the islands by promoting the development of matters which are specific to Croatia's many inhabited islands.

The beneficiaries of the program are both local and regional self-government units which, within their respective administrative boundaries, include Croatia's inhabited islands and their associated periodically inhabited and uninhabited islands and islets, as well as the Pelješac peninsula.

The contracts that the ministry will conclude with local and regional self-government units in accordance with the decision for 2019 will fund 51 small capital projects in the area of ​​the islands and the Pelješac peninsula, for which the state budget provided a handsome 22.8 million kuna.

The Minister of Regional Development and EU Funds, Gabrijela Žalac, will sign contracts with the following units:

Municipality of Bol - Reconstruction of public utility building - Municipality building

Cres - Construction of the SU2 road in the area of ​​Melin - first phase

Dobrinj Municipality - Reconstruction of part of the administrative building of the Dobrinj Municipality - building 2

Hvar - Paving over the rock of an existing concrete public area on the bank of the waterfront (riva)

Municipality of Jelsa - Construction of a bridge on a unclassified road in the centre of Vrboska

Municipality of Kali - Construction of the coastal promenade of Kali - Rt. Artina (phase IV)

Komiža - Repairing the Zanchi house

Kukljica Municipality - Arranging and decorating a public building for the expansion of a kindergarten in Kukljica

Mali Lošinj - Reconstruction of the area near Studenac

Municipality of Murter-Kornati - Construction of a kindergarten and a nursery school in Murter

Municipality of Nerežišća - Completion of works on the construction of communal infrastructure of the Balun-Vrpovje business zone in Nerežišća

City of Novalja - Repairing the Samorašnji put (street) in Novalja

Okrug District - Construction of a kindergarten building in Okrug Gornji

Omišalj Municipality - Construction of a precipitation drainage system in the Rosulje settlement in Njivice

Pag - Repairing and redoing of pedestrian-cycling paths

Pakoštane Municipality - Concrete roads on Vrgadi island - III. phase

Pašman Municipality - Repairing of the breakwater in the Mrljane settlement

Municipality of Postira -  Redoing of the local park in Postira - II. phase

Municipality of Povljana - Carry out a project for the reduction of losses on the water supply system of the Povljana Municipality

Municipality of Preko - Reconstruction of the Lastavica kindergarten in Preko

Primorje-Gorski Kotar County - Medical rehabilitation park in Veli Lošinj

Pučišća Municipality - Doing up of the square in Gornji Humac - III. phase

Rab - A water supply and drainage system within the Mišnjak business zone

Municipality of Sali - Construction of the Orbulica Children's Hospital - Sali

Municipality of Selca - Construction of a playground in Selca

Split-Dalmatia County - The continuation of works on the upgrading of the Pučišć sculpting school

Stari Grad - Arranging the roof space of the city library and the reading rooms of Stari Grad

Municipality of Sućuraj - Unclassified road in the area of ​​Sućuraj Municipality

Supetar town - The transformation of the ground floor of the building in the street ''P. Jakšić 17'' in Supetar for the needs of DV "Mrvica"

Municipality of Sutivan - Asphalting of the street ''Put svetog Roka''

City of Šibenik - Continued repairing of the network of unclassified roads on the island of Žirje

City of Šibenik - Construction of an open-air sports park on the island of Zlarin

Municipality of Šolta - Construction of a coastal promenade with public lighting in Stomorska

Municipality of Tisno - Redoing of the park in front of the school in Betina - a sports court

City of Trogir - Modernisation of public lighting on Drvenik Mali, Drvenik Veli and Čiovo

City of Vis - Reconstruction of buildings in the Vis business zone, including energy renewal

City of Vodice - Doing up of the children's playground in Prvić Luka

Municipality of Vrbnik - Doing up of the sv. Ivan square

City of Zadar - Designing of cycling routes with all of the necessary infrastructure on Molat

Make sure to stay up to date with Croatian island development and much more by following our dedicated politics and lifestyle pages.

As Morski writes on the 2nd of February, 2019, the I Love Beli (Udruga Volim Beli) association was founded spontaneously back in 2011 and since then has been operating in the northern part of the beautiful island of Cres, Tramuntana. For years, the association's active work, creative ideas and various projects have been committed to revitalising that part of the island where the growing population exceeds the average of other rural areas.

In many conversations with Cres-based entrepreneurs, as well as visitors and other locals, a great need for the area to maintain its existing natural resources, to expand the supply, and to ensure the safety of recreants and hikers was felt.

This is exactly how the ideas for an association between PD Kamnenjak, Tomislav Bandera Anić, and the author of "Tramuntana Hike&Bike", was born. The idea represents a network of hiking and cycling trails on Tramuntana, as was reported by Pokret otoka (Island movement).

Tramuntana is one of the few examples in Kvarner and beyond, where such projects are carried out in accordance with the practices of the Croatian Mountaineering Association, which also approved this project and included the hiking trails in the register of hiking trails. The Kamenjak mountaineering club is responsible for the supervision and the execution of all the work on the footpaths and hiking trails on the island of Cres, to which the Croatian Mountaineering Association assigned this function.

There has been a very good response from volunteers from both the island and the mainland, without which this action would not be possible to undertake. People recognise the important of the project, respond with enthusiasm and are happy to do what they can to help it along.

Many entrepreneurs have been providing financial support through donations for both this project and numerous other activities the Volim Beli association is carrying out.

The project of marking out the hiking trails and footpaths has the full support of the Cres Tourist Board and has received donations from many local business owners, entrepreneurs and companies, and further cooperation with many other island business owners is expected.

The "Mystical Trails of Tramuntana" project is partly a continuation of the "Tramuntana Hike&Bike" project, which will work to offer nature lovers, hikers and other lovers of the great outdoors increased safety and far more opportunities to enjoy everything the stunning island of Cres has to offer.

Make sure to stay up to date by following our dedicated lifestyle page for much more.

Click here for the original article by Pokret otoka

As eZadar writes on the 27th of January, 2019, at the ITF Slovakiatour 2019, the largest Slovak holiday and leisure fair which is currently marking 25 years of existence, the Vir Tourism tourist agency set up a stand with gifts for visitors to the fair, and held a presentation of the Croatian island in which the hall was filled to maximum capacity.

''We did a good job presenting the island and its tourist offer, and after the presentation there was quite a lot of interest in Vir. Of course, we did business with tour operators, agencies and tourism journalists who were fascinated by the number of Slovaks going on holiday to the island,'' says Srđan Liverić from the aforementioned Vir Tourism agency.

Liverić and the head of the agency, Mate Čulina, carried out most of the work directly with the fair's stand which attracted the attention of not only Slovak travellers and tourists, but also the director of the Croatian Tourist Board for the Czech Republic and Slovakia, Dubravko Miholić, who joined the Vir locals a week earlier at a similar fair in in Brno, Czech Republic.

The Slovak part of Vir's tourism promotion was held from January the 24th to the 27th, with a presentation in Bratislava, the participation of numerous representatives of the Slovakian media, investors and business partners of Vir's destination companies. As a travel and leisure fair, ITF Slovakiatour is one of the leading trade fairs in Slovakia for the tourism and hospitality sector.

Slovakiatour is an excellent opportunity to present tourism products and services, and all visitors can get information from tour operators, travel agencies, hoteliers and airlines so that they can organise their own holiday plans. Exhibitors like Vir Tourism used the fair to interact with potential buyers of services and other representatives of the tourism industry.

''This jubilee 25th ITF Slovakiatour was the most visited so far, and as the only Croatian promotion booth, all the attention of the Slovaks interested in spending their summer holidays in Croatia was directed towards us,'' stated Liverić, reporting on a good job well done in Bratislava.

This year's ITF Slovakiatour brought together 350 exhibitors from many countries from across the world, from Croatia, the Czech Republic, Cyprus, China and the Dominican Republic to Iran, Kenya, Cuba, Austria, Italy, Morocco and many others.

The numbers speak volumes about the significance of the Slovak tourist market for Vir island. Slovaks made up 12,833 tourist arrivals and 108,612 overnight stays, representing a growth of 19.5 percent (10.742 in 2017) in arrivals and 18 percent in nights (92.049).

Along with Slovenes, Hungarians and Germans, only the Slovaks made up more than 100,000 overnight stays and 10,000 arrivals last year, with continuous tourist growth from that market for Vir.

Follow our dedicated travel page for more.

Click here for the original article by Kazimir Skrbic for eZadar

Croatian islanders might enjoy what many of us would assume to be a life of paradise on one of the many stunning islands dotted along the coastline, our naive view tends to hide a lot of the issues faced on a daily basis by island inhabitants. While numerous initiatives have sprouted over the last few years to try to equalise the standards on Croatia's islands to that of the mainland, things are, of course, slow. Despite that, the Croatian Government has put forward an island development plan for this year.

As Morski writes on the 27th of January, 2019, the Ministry of Regional Development and European Union Funds is continuing to invest heavily into Croatia's many islands through the island development program by encouraging local and regional self-government units to invest in the development of their own, respective island infrastructure and economy, the competent department of the aforementioned ministry stated.

The overall objective of 2019's island development program is the creating of preconditions for sustainable economic and social development by enhancing the general quality of life of the inhabitants of the islands through encouraging the development of certain things specific to islands and island life.

The program's users will be numerous units of local and regional self-government which, in their administrative boundaries, include Croatia's inhabited islands and their associated periodically inhabited and uninhabited islands and islets, as well as the Pelješac peninsula.

The coverage of the program refers to the inhabited islands of the Republic of Croatia which are located within the six units of regional self-government, ie, the six coastal counties which have islands under their jurisdiction (Primorje-Gorski Kotar County, Lika-Senj County, Zadar County, Šibenik-Knin County, Split-Dalmatia County and Dubrovnik-Neretva County).

To briefly recall, in 2018, the Croatian Government invested a massive 19,000,000.00 kuna in the same program on a total of forty different projects. More projects for the islands and their development are set to come throughout the course of this year.

Make sure to stay up to date with our dedicated politics page for more on the Croatian Government, and on both domestic and European politics.

As Morski writes on the 27th of January, 2019, over the last five years, the island of Vir has been experiencing regular works on large communal infrastructure projects. This intensive work on Vir began back in 2013, and the completion of this process, ie the construction of a water and sewage network in all of the island's settlements, as well as the complete asphalting of the streets and setting up public lighting, is expected by the year 2025.

Then, according to Vir's mayor Kristijan Kapović, everything Vir has had going on in its ''makeover'' procedure will finally be complete, meaning that by 2025, the entire island of Vir will be a completely ''done up'' island. This means that all 10,000 buildings and more than 800 streets will be fully equipped in an infrastructure sense, all facilities will have access to water and the sewage system, along with newly asphalted roads, public lighting and renovated beaches. Owing to the velocity of works that need to be undertaken until 2025, the mayor has asked Vir's residents for their support and their patience.

Here's how that all looks in practice: Every day, hundreds of employees from the island's local utility companies Vir Maintenance and Vir Waterways, as the chosen contractor of works on the project for the construction of the water and sewage network, are working on the maintenance and installation of new public lighting systems and construction of connections to the water supply and the sewerage network island of Vir.

Parallel with the intensive implementation of the island's asphalting project, in 2013 and 2017, more than 75 kilometres of roads with about 200,000 m² of asphalt were completed, while the existing roads on the island are all maintained on a daily basis, their length can be measured in several hundreds of kilometres. Along with 200 brand new light fixtures, a huge amount of public lighting have been set up in all of the island's small villages, while around 500 new ones are in preparation for being set up over the next two years. More than 200 million kuna has been invested in all of these projects in total so far.

The implementation of the enormous project for the construction of Vir's water supply system and sewage network has been carried out in its first and second phases with the beginning of the third phase on its way. The Prezid settlement will soon become the new construction site for the construction of both water supply and drainage facilities for about 1,300 buildings.

''The entire island of Vir with all of its settlements, or about 7,000 buildings that are not yet covered by the grid, should receive water and sewage systems by the end of 2023, or in the first half of 2024. Once the large infrastructure pipes are placed in the ground, public lighting and asphalt will be placed in all the streets without such communal infrastructure. This will be accomplished by 2025,'' concluded Kapović.

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Click here for the original article by Kazimir Skrbic on eZadar

The nautical blog Sailing Europe published a heartwarming piece about the often overlooked Croatian island of Krapanj near Šibenik. While the original article is of some age now, it's unusual to see Krapanj mentioned in detail by anyone outside of Croatia, as media coverage about the lowest-lying Croatian island, famous for its long tradition of sponge diving, is unfortunately not all that frequent.

As Morski writes on the 26th of January, 2019, the island of Krapanj is the smallest and lowest-lying inhabited island in the whole of the Adriatic sea. Located just south of the historic Dalmatian city of Šibenik, it rises only 1.5 metres above sea level, making it the "lowest" Croatian island of all.

About 200 inhabitants live permanently on an area of ​​less than 0.5 km². Not so long ago, there were about 1,500 people living on Krapanj, which once made it the most heavily inhabited island in the Adriatic. The island fosters a long tradition of dealing with sponge, a way of life which has been known on Krapanj for centuries now.

The sponge tradition on Krapanj is over 300 years old, and in 1893 it became a real job, because then the first set of heavy diving equipment arrived at the island, and an official diver's cooperative was established. The secrets of sponge diving on the island were originally brought there by a Franciscan, who arrived there from the Greek island of Crete.

He taught local divers from Krapanj how to handle the raw sponges, which is this unassuming Greek could easily be considered a reformer of the local economy on the island. You can find out more about the history of the island in the monastery of Sv. Križ, surrounded by a thick pine forest, in the very centre of the island.

Krapanj is connected to the mainland by a boat which operates daily, while a taxi service is available on request.

The author of the text warns nautical drivers to take care of the varying depths of the sea, especially when they approach Krapanj through the very small group of islands located just in front of it.

Detailing further, the author of the text on Sailing Europe states that even though Krapanj is not the most popular Croatian sailing destination, one should be sure to visit it.

Follow our dedicated travel page for more.

Click here for the original article by Sailing Europe