CRO. CHAMBER OF COMMERCE SAYS EXPORTS ARE THE ONLY WAY OUT

ZAGREB, July 2 (Hina)- The only way out of the current economic situation is to intensify exports that have stagnated for the past ten years, president of the Croatian Chamber of Commerce (HGK), Nadan Vidosevic said at an assembly of the HGK on Tuesday. #L# The Chamber's annual assembly adopted a document entitled "Exports-Imperative-Way out-Challenge" with the motto, "Business is not a must. Exports are a must". The objective of the document and today's assembly is to point out to the extremely poor situation with Croatian exports and Croatia's competitiveness in general, Vidosevic said. He noted some causes of the problem, such as the monetary or currency exchange policies that exporters consider to be one of the main causes for the imbalance in foreign trade and lack of competitiveness, even to the point of being referred to as the "killer of exports". Vidosevic made a particular point that the Chamber does not advocate the depreciation of the kuna but rather a more "subtle game" between the nominal and real currency exchange rate and for a period of at least three years. The president of the HGK forwarded an appeal to the Croatian Government, employers and unions to come to a political and social consensus without which, in his opinion, there can be no serious turnabout in the situation. In addition to currency exchange policies, there was mention that the stagnation in exports and domestic products were caused by the low level of education or rather unqualified personnel in the country which is also a repercussion of the lack of ties between science and the economy. The problem lies in the insufficiency of new export programmes of domestic products as well as a cumbersome administration and the lack of will in the government to back exporters and the lack of protection against superfluous and poor quality imports, were just some of the points made at HGK's assembly. (hina) sp sb