PM RACAN OUTLINES KEY GOVERNMENT GOALS IN 2001

ZAGREB, Jan 18 (Hina) - Addressing a session marking the government's first anniversary in office, Prime Minister Ivica Racan on Thursday outlined the objectives the government is determined to achieve in the second year of its mandate. The objectives are to increase production and export and cut the unemployment rate, decentralise the state and bring administration up-to-date, complete the privatisation of the state portfolio, and wrap up preparations for a pension and health reform and associate membership in the European Union. The success of the government programme calls for confidence and tolerance in society, partnership relations, and the active participation of all, said Racan. President Stipe Mesic, also present at the session, said the government's results were not spectacular, but that the starting foundations had not been either. The biggest share of the issues the government faced was inherited, he said. We inherited a state which was not law-based, had a wrong policy in privatisation and towards neighbouring Bosnia, headed towards isolation, Mesic said. The key task in the coming period is to make the institutions of the system function. This will facilitate the solving of problems with UN's war crimes tribunal in The Hague, as well as issues in the judiciary, welfare, health, and education sectors, the president said. (hina) ha