TV BROADCAST ON FIRST 100 DAYS OF IVO SANADER CABINET

ZAGREB, March 24 (Hina) - The Croatian government has invested more efforts in foreign affairs than in the economy in the past period so as to create conditions for intensive foreign investments, increase economic activities and reduce unemployment, Finance Minister Ivan Suker said in a TV broadcast in which participants commented on the first 100 days since the Ivo Sanader Cabinet had taken office.#L# Suker said in the TV programme, broadcast by the Croatian television on Tuesday evening, that it had been impossible to do anything more in the economic sector until the adoption of the state budget for this year. Economic analyst Ratko Boskovic said the new government had made some moves which were popular in the public but which were a step backward in the economic sense. "Nobody expected the government to set the Croatian economy into motion in the first 100 days, but it promised to draw up plans for solving the foreign trade and balance-of-payment deficits as well as cuts in unemployment," Boskovic said. The leader of the Croatian Helsinki Committee (HHO), Zarko Puhovski, said that at the helm of the new government was a man who promised all what could be promised, but it remained to be seen what the government could fulfil. Puhovski believes that the new government has the better Prime Minister while the previous coalition government had better ministers. He also accused the current Deputy Prime Minister, Andrija Hebrang, of undermining the credibility of the government by his moves. The leader of the Croatian Bloc (HB) party, Ivic Pasalic, criticised the Sanader cabinet for being too servile in negotiations with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as well as in cooperation with the Hague-based UN war crimes tribunal. He described as disastrous the conduct of the new government when the indictment against generals Ivan Cermak and Mladen Markac had been unsealed. (Hina) ms