VUKOVAR PORT HAS NEW LANDING AREA

VUKOVAR, May 11 (Hina) - The loading of a 120-tonne transformer onto a German ship anchored in the Vukovar port marked on Friday the opening of a newly-built, 50-metre-long landing strip covering an area of 2,000 square metres. #L# The Croatian Ministry of Transport, Maritime Affairs and Communications has invested some five million kuna in the construction of the landing area. Minister Alojz Tusek said this was the first time the Vukovar port had a landing area where ships would be able to land sidelong and where it would be possible to load and unload larger quantities of freight. The state will invest another several million kuna in the reconstruction of the port infrastructure, he said. According to long-term programmes, the port will be relocated to the future Danube-Sava canal, an investment worth some 300 million dollars. This investment will increase to 850 million dollars with the construction of a port with terminals and storage areas, he said, adding once the Danube-Sava canal was completed, the Vukovar port would become the most important port in this part of Europe. Tusek was unable to say when the construction works would begin because, he said, their start depended on preliminary and final designs, surveying and property-rights issues, which were not completed yet. The Vukovar port's pre-war turnover amounted to 1.5 million tonnes of various freight and today it amounts only to some 100,000 tonnes due to war damage which has been estimated at eight million German marks. (hina) rml