India and Croatia have initiated wide ranging measures to augment the level of bilateral trade, which has been stagnating at the level of US $ 6.8 million. Inaugurating the 4th Session of the Indo-Croatian Joint Committee Meeting here today, the Commerce Minister, Shri Ramakrishna Hegde, underlined that concrete steps must be taken by both India and Croatia to augment and diversify the trade between the two countries as the current volume of bilateral trade did not reflect the size and strengths of the two economies. Both Shri Hegde and Mr.Nenad Porges, Minister of Trade and Tourism, Government of Croatia, who is leading the Croatian official and business delegation expressed the hope that India and Croatia will reach the full potential of the respective capabilities and become major trading partners in the 21st century. India has offered many items for exports to Croatia including chemicals & fertilisers, electronics, automobiles, processing technology and electrical engineering. Shri Hegde said there were a number of areas where Indian manufacturing industry could complement the domestic production in Croatia such as software & services, small & medium enterprises, telecommunications and railways. The strong commitment of India and Croatia to a free, transparent and market oriented economy provided enormous possibilities for greater synergies in Indo-Croatian bilateral cooperation, Shri Hegde and Mr.Porges stressed. A substantial part of India’s trade with the former Yugoslavia, in fact, passed through Croatia and, therefore, considerable potential exists for growth in Indo-Croatian trade because of these traditional linkages as also the political and economic stability which Croatia now enjoys.