OPATIJA OPATIJA, Feb 1 (Hina) - Economic growth is not possible without a competitive environment which will attract investors, enabling Croatia to use its last chance to join the European Union, Zeljko Covic, head of the National
Council for Competitiveness, said in Opatija on Saturday.
OPATIJA, Feb 1 (Hina) - Economic growth is not possible without a
competitive environment which will attract investors, enabling
Croatia to use its last chance to join the European Union, Zeljko
Covic, head of the National Council for Competitiveness, said in
Opatija on Saturday. #L#
Presenting the Council's work at the first media workshop on
competitiveness, organised by the Croatian Initiative for
Competitiveness, Covic said that changes needed to be faster
because Croatia was not ready for international competition and
that economic growth required better conditions for foreign
investments.
Croatia's foreign debt is too high and the current GDP rate will be
difficult to maintain, Covic stated.
One of the reasons why there was lack of competitiveness was lack of
innovations, Covic said, adding that over the past three years none
of the scientific institutions had registered a new patent.
Government officials, business people, university professors and
union representatives spoke to some 40 reporters about their work
on increasing competitiveness. The purpose of the workshop is to
improve communication between the generators of competitiveness
and the media.
The World Economic Forum's report on global competitiveness for
2002/2003 places Croatia 58th among 80 countries according to the
growth of its competitiveness and 52nd according to its
competitiveness.
This shows that Croatian firms are not sufficiently competitive and
cannot increase living standards, Vice-Premier Slavko Linic said.
Linic, too, called for faster changes and urged the government to
create conditions for a more active economy and social partners to
establish dialogue.
Asked whether Croatia was a politically stable country, Linic said
he believed that it was and that it was able to communicate with the
European Union and the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague.
He added that the government alone could not secure competitiveness
and that changes in some "units of local self-government are
greater because they were made possible by more successful
individuals, not the government".
The leader of the Independent Workers' Trade Unions of Croatia,
Kresimir Sever, said the unions did support competitiveness and
flexibility but "on a human scale".
The Initiative for Competitiveness was launched in spring 2001 by
the US Agency for International Development. Its purpose is to
increase the country's competitiveness on international and
regional markets. A group of Croatian business people established
the Business Council for Competitiveness and started talks with the
government after which the National Council for Competitiveness
was set up, including government officials, unionists, business
people and university professors.
(hina) rml