MESIC PROPOSES ESTABLISHING COUNCIL FOR ECONOMY, DEVELOPMENT

ZAGREB, March 27 (Hina) - Croatia has to question the concept of development and institutional reforms according to its own criteria and requirements, President Stjepan Mesic said on Wednesday, proposing the establishment of a council for the economic system and development strategy at his office.#L# The council would be advisory and exert the supreme expert and political authority, Mesic said at a conference of entrepreneurs addressing competitiveness as the prerequisite of economic growth. Mesic drew attention to the danger of seeing owners of big banks, especially foreigners, who, looking for more profitable placements, exported domestic savings and refrained from development and supporting the Croatian economy. Mesic said this indicated the possibility of a conflict between the criterion of implementing privatisation through foreign investors and the criterion of maximising and maintaining employment and Gross Domestic Product growth. Croatia has to set the speed and level of globalisation and privatisation it wishes to reach in line with its needs and the stages set in its strategy for rapprochement with the European Union, said Mesic. He also criticised the privatisation process, saying the collusion of domestic and foreign banks with the Croatian Privatisation Fund had been done under a poor supervision of the Commission for Securities, enabling many bankruptcies or the sale of shares at inadmissibly low prices, all in the function of preferential privatisation. Mesic urged providing conditions which would direct foreign and domestic capital to the financing of economic development. This requires a clear picture of Croatia's possibilities and the ways it controls and regulates development goals, he concluded. (hina) ha