(Editor’s note: This post on business expansion in Croatia is part of Dispatches’ Tech Tuesday series. We cover technology and business in order to track opportunities for our highly skilled internationals.)
Anyone aware of Croatia’s often tragic past will likely know of the economic and demographic devastation that befell the vast plains of eastern Croatia decades ago. The brain drain from the former breadbasket of Yugoslavia never really dried up, and the area – characterised by swathes of fertile fields – is now unfortunately home to an increasing list of so-called “ghost villages.”
It’s gradual, but eastern Croatia is transforming.
Slowly but surely, this chronically overlooked part of the European Union’s tourism star, far from the glam of the coastline, is attracting foreign investor attention. Osijek, the region’s largest city, has become synonymous with several successful startups and tech enterprises.
That’s a sentence few could have ever imagined reading just a decade ago. If I’m being honest, it’s still difficult to grasp even now.
Investment, tech companies and massive American enterprises have found their way to a region of Croatia so neglected, and it seems that the sad saga so strongly associated with it may finally be over.
Jabil
Jabil sets up home along the Drava River. Jabil, a 58-year-old firm based in St. Petersburg, Fla., designs, engineers and manufactures electronic circuit board assemblies and systems. Its stock trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol “JBL.” It has about 140,000 employees in more than 25 countries, including Croatia, and reported $7 billion in total revenue for 2024.
It took 15 months for Jabil to open in Croatia, hiring more than 1,000 employees from 140 companies, and it provided 1,500 new jobs in its first phase alone. Jabil’s arrival in Osijek’s Nemetin Business Zone was the largest investment in the area since Croatian independence more than 30 years ago.
Jabil will place Osijek on the map, spanning almost 48,000 square metres and boasting state-of-the-art infrastructure. Suzana Lepan-Stefancic of Croatia’s Business Diary reports the new plant will serve the transportation, healthcare and automotive industries.
Osijek won the company in competition with 16 other cities, and Jabil’s choice proved not only Osijek, but Croatia as a whole, is changing in the eyes of investors on a global scale. Indeed, the plant was Jabil’s first greenfield investment in Europe in two decades.
Germany’s IMS Gear follows
It didn’t begin and end with Jabil, although that alone would have been incredible. Germany’s IMS Gear, based in Donaueschingen, wasn’t far behind, and they also made the Nemetin Business Zone their new home. The primary business sector of this German company is the production of plastic and metal gear components as well as various systems for the automotive industry. It is set to begin production in Osijek, thus becoming Jabil’s neighbour on a piece of purchased land spanning 33,442 meters2, or about 350,000 square feet. The projected value of the investment stands at around 6 million euros.
From its new facility, IMS Gear will produce components for customers from the automotive industry across Southeastern Europe
This company is 160 years old and has production facilities in China, Mexico and the United States. Employing more than 3,000 people, it has produced its parts for the European market only in Germany thus far. Croatia and specifically Osijek won them over owing to its “fantastic location and strategic position, great entrepreneurial zone and helpful city administration,” according to a media release.
The factory is expected to start production in 2025, creating 250 to 300 jobs, stated IMS Gear managing director Wolfgang Weber.
For anyone familiar with the inner workings of Croatia, the words “helpful city administration” says enough about Osijek’s genuine aims for betterment. Osijek’s IT and tech community continues to boost eastern Croatia’s image.
From Gideon to Orqa and beyond, the well-known Osijek IT and tech community is continuing to make a very strong contribution to the development of the local economy. A new IT park sprang up this year, and the construction and equipping of the IT business centre cost 8.7 million euros. Almost half of that sum came in the form of non-refundable EU cash.
It is precisely because of the excellently developed IT sector that young professionals from Zagreb, Istria and Dalmatia are moving to Osijek and its surroundings. That in itself would have never happened just a few years ago.
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Lauren Simmonds
Lauren Simmonds is the editor of Total Croatia News, the largest English language portal in Croatia. She lives in Zagreb, Croatia, and is a translator, content writer, interpreter and the co-author of "Croatia - A Survival Kit for Foreigners," which was published in 2022.