RACAN: ADVERSE ECONOMIC TRENDS ARE BEING HALTED

ZAGREB, May 7 (Hina) - Croatian Prime Minister Ivica Racan said on Monday he was an optimist regarding the halting of negative trends in economy, particularly employment, and stressed new projects would encourage faster employment. Addressing a regular news conference, Racan said more careful analyses showed that unemployment continued to grow across Croatia this year as well. Individual projects, such as the imminent completion of the consolidation process at the Sisak Ironworks and investment plans of public companies, should also contribute to development and reduction of unemployment, he said. The prime minister dismissed claims that the state budget was being filled poorly, i.e. with loans and not capital income and budgetary revenues. He reminded that the problem of capital revenue was caused by problems in the second stage of privatisation of Croatian Telekom (HT), however, he expected the budget would be executed as planned. Racan dismissed objections that the government was not aware of the social problems and difficult living conditions of the majority of Croatian citizens. We are dealing with a very difficult situation which is not easy to change, he said. Commenting on the "Slobodna Dalmacija" case, Racan said the government had the obligation to complete the financial consolidation of this media company. The government, he said, does not want to interfere in the editorial policy of any paper, including Slobodna Dalmacija, and hopes that the editorial policy would be determined by the daily's journalists as long as the state is its owner. Racan hopes a new page has been opened to the benefit of Slobodna Dalmacija and that "messages of intolerance and hatred and insulting comments about legally elected and democratic state bodies will not be on the pages of any Croatian paper." (hina) rml