The State Secretary at the Transport and Development Ministry, Branko Bacic, said the hauliers could thus save some 12,000 kuna per vehicle.
Given that heavy vehicles sometimes use state roads instead of highways, the discount would also help prevent the accelerated devastation of state roads, Bacic said.
Finance Minister Ivan Suker believes this will contribute to better road safety.
The construction of the Zupanja-Lipovac highway should be finished by the end of 2006, Bacic told the government which sent into urgent parliamentary procedure a contract on guarantees, concluded by the European Investment Bank, for projects within corridor X.
The project for the Zupanja-Lipovac highway, which will cost 90 million euros, will be co-financed with long-term loans from the European Investment Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, each of the two institutions approving a loan for 45 million euros.
The government also sent into the second parliamentary reading a draft law on the rights of war veterans and their families. PM Sanader urged a political consensus on the matter, hailing the fact that the draft was endorsed by all parliamentary parties in the first reading.
The law envisages regulating the rights of the Bosnian Croat Defence Council (HVO) veterans with a bilateral agreement with Bosnia-Herzegovina.
The implementation of the law would cost 3.6 billion kuna annually.
The right to pre-emptive buying of real estate in protected areas such as regional reserves or natural parks is given to the government or units of local authority. Foreign nationals cannot own real estate in the said areas.
Protected natural reserves and parks account for 9.83 percent of the Croatian territory plus some four percent of protected objects.
The government also adopted a package of power laws regulating the market and activities on it.
The package adjusting the matter with EU standards the was sent into urgent procedure.