Special attention will be paid to entrepreneurial zones, which will be granted 90 million kuna, which along with funds for regional development and employment will amount to almost 120 million kuna, twice as much as last year, said Economy, Labour and Entrepreneurship Minister Branko Vukelic.
The government will continue encouraging production and projects for the growth of competitiveness, and for that purpose it will ensure 24 million kuna or 13 million more than in 2003.
Prime Minister Ivo Sanader said that incentives worth almost 105 million kuna had been granted through 29 projects last year.
Small and medium-sized entrepreneurs account for 98 percent of some 61,600 business subjects and for 55 percent of all employed persons in the country.
Data for the first two months of this year show that exports have continued to grow faster than imports, Sanader said.
Exports in the said period amounted to 7.5 billion kuna, while in the same period last year they were 6.8 billion.
The government today also adopted a project for the modernisation and renewal of the passenger fleet of private shipping agencies, which will receive state subsidies worth two million kuna this year.
This year the government will co-finance the reconstruction of ten ships.
The government also defined the categories, types and classes of waste in line with EU standards.
The waste is categorised as hazardous, nonhazardous and inert waste and it is divided into 20 groups, depending on its origin and the sector which has generated it.
The government sent into parliamentary procedure the final bill on environmental protection.