ZAGREB, 11 March, 2021 - Several contracts, worth 17.5 million kuna, for reconstruction of seaports and waterfronts in the broader Rijeka area were signed on Thursday by Sea and Transport Minister Oleg Butković and local authorities.

The contracts envisaging the upgrade of ports on the islands of Krk, Rab and Lošinj as well as the coastal cities of Bakar, Mošćenička Draga, Novi Vinodolski, Crikvenica and Kraljevica are part of the Croatian Coast Renaissance project in which two billion kuna has been invested to date, and the lion's share of this amount has been ensured from EU funds.

Minister Butković said today that investments in seaport infrastructure would continue.

(€1 = HRK 7.582776)

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EU fund absorption in Croatia hasn't been great, but as things are gradually beginning to improve, the projects these non-refundable funds are pumped into are improving too. Mošćenička Draga Municipality is partaking in a particularly meaningful one.

As Morski writes on the 1st of June, 2019, prehistoric fortresses and ethnobotany for sustainable tourism and rural development - from Kras (via Brkini, Ćićarija and Istria) to Kvarner are part of the KAŠTELIR project funded by the European Rural Development Fund.

The main objective of the project is to actively preserve local heritage from Kras to Kvarner through the development of sustainable cross-border tourism. The project contributes heavily to the evaluation and protection of the townships and their promotion through the use of non-invasive approaches (ICT-based) and the presentation of their former traditional ways of life by using wild herbs (etnobotanics) and breeding old plant varieties in order to keep them alive, growing, and relevant to the aforementioned areas and their combined and respective histories.

The total cost of this project amounts to an enormous 1,416,321.03  euros, of which 85 percent is financed by European Union (EU) funds. The share from the Mošćenička Draga Municipality in the total project budget stands at 146.626,15 euros.

The numerous significant project activities that will take place within the area of ​​the Mošćenička Draga Municipality include the creation of an information-interpretation botanical park in the very centre of Mošćenička Draga, the organisation of a prehistoric ethnobotanical festival and the arrangement of an instructive, ethnobotanical path which leads from Brseč to Ozid.

The planned duration of the project is until March the 31st, 2021 (thirty months in total), and the Mošćenička Draga Municipality is beginning its role in the the project seven months after its official beginning on the occasion of Mali Lošinj having exited from partaking in the project, as was reported directly from the Mošćenička Draga Municipality.

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