Croatian PM Wraps Up Silicon Valley Tour: ‘Honour to Spend an Hour with them’

Croatian Prime Minister Zoran Milanović has wrapped up the Silicon Valley leg of his fleeting US IT giants tour on Wednesday after a meeting with Hewlett-Packard…

Milanović this week also met with the heads of IT companies Microsoft, and CISCO to gain an insight how the government can best implement strategies to attract investment from them.

“Changes that happen here are the ones that will mark the world over the next 15 or 20 years,” Milanović said after meeting HP’s Meg Whittman, adding that it was an honour to chat for an hour with such people.

Milanović says meeting CISCO management board chair John T. Chambers and corporate vice-presidents Chuck Robbins and Wim Elfrink was very beneficial.

“We have not come here as buyers, CISCO sells its products in Croatia and many other countries, there are no contracts of that kind, but the very meeting with these people who are the world’s champions in their job and from whom we can benefit is worth staying in the U.S. for a few days,” he said.

Milanović with Cisco’s John T. Chambers

The Prime Minister said that Croatia was moving in down the technology path itself.

“What we have done so far in our country, the e-citizens project, fiscalization, which was done with our own brain power and is now sold in Central Europe and throughout the Balkans, is something a lot of other nations don’t have,” said the PM, highlighting that export of IT knowledge from Croatia is on the rise.

Milanović, who also meet with Oracle delegates, now heads off to New York where he will meet with heads of IBM on Friday.