Such a consensus should include the President of the Republic, the Government, the Opposition and intellectuals, who would propose a strategy for the development of the country, Vidosevic said in an interview with the public broadcaster HRT. He noted that Croatia had not had such a strategy since the early 1980s.

Vidosevic said he had expected that it would be much easier to develop such a strategy now that both the Government and the President of the Republic came from the same side of the political spectrum.

The only chance for the present government is to reach a broad social consensus on development, but the problem is that there is not enough faith and dialogue, he said, noting that the Croatian National Bank should also play an important part in it.

The HGK president believes that Croatia needs a complete change of the economic policy, which he said had proved to be a failure, in order to lay the ground for foreign and domestic investment. He said that Croatia should take advantage of its geographical position as the most favourable point of contact between European and Asian economies.