The conference was opened by Parliament Speaker Vladimir Seks and President Stjepan Mesic's envoy Sinisa Tatalovic.
Opening remarks were also made by the head of the Hina Steering Council, Jadranko Crnic, and the secretary general of the European Association of News Agencies (EANA), Erik Nylen.
Parliament Speaker Seks said that Hina's fundamental task was to provide a real picture of the situation in Croatia. He said that over the past 15 year Hina had developed into a respectable news agency.
Seks said Hina was often quoted by the world's leading news agency, adding that the adoption of new legislation on Hina four years ago guaranteed the agency's editorial, organisational and business independence. He noted that this helped Hina's transformation from a state-run into an independent public institution.
The founding of Hina has exceptional importance in the history of journalism in Croatia and was also one of the important indicators of what was to follow on the political front: the break up of the old state and Croatia's independence, Tatalovic said.
Founding a national news agency also meant a break-up with an ideologically-motivated and often controlled agency journalism, the presidential envoy said.
The head of Hina's Steering Council, Crnic, said the national news agency today had several dozen news services offering some 400 articles in Croatian and English on a daily basis.
The seminar continued with round table debates.