DC DEMANDS PARLIAMENTARY DEBATE ON CROATIA'S FOREIGN DEBT

ZAGREB, April 29 (Hina) - The Democratic Centre (DC) demands a parliamentary debate on Croatia's worryingly high foreign debt and requests of the Croatian National Bank (HNB) to propose control mechanism for Croatia's indebtedness, party president Mate Granic said at a news conference on Monday. #L# Granic said that according to information from diplomatic sources Croatia's foreign debt now exceeded US$18 billion, despite the fact that the HNB governor announced that this amount could be reached only at the end of the year. Granic said that during its mandate the ruling coalition and its government increased the country's debt from $9.9 billion to $16.5 billion or, according to the said information, to $18 billion, which represents an increase of $8 billion in three years. The DC president said that in the said period Croatia's internal debt increased from $2.8 billion to 7.4 billion and that the total increase of the debt (foreign and internal) since this government came in power amounts to "a worrying and frightening" $13 billion. All of this, Granic said, shows that Croatia is a highly indebted state according to international criteria and that its total debt exceeds the annual Gross Domestic Product. (hina) it sb