The minister underlined the importance of starting to use farmland also for the purpose of economic development at state and local level.
The government recently moved the changes in order to simplify the procedure for the use of state-owned agricultural land and to reduce farmland conversion fees.
Under the proposal, fees for the conversion of farmland into built-up areas will be cut from 50 to 5 percent of the land's market value and from 100 to 10 percent if the land is particularly valuable and if it is arable.
Cobankovic warned that during the last ten years of the application of the existing legislation, the system of decision-making by units of local self-government on the availability of farmland had not come to life, which could no longer be tolerated by the government.
Croatia must create room for economic development and for the implementation of economic projects of local and state interest, he said, adding that Croatia must eliminate obstacles to investments.
Opposition parties today demanded that the draft amendments be discussed in regular rather than in fast-track procedure because of many objections already voiced to this government-sponsored draft.
Recently, several nongovernmental organisations, together with a national network of 42 environmental associations, the "Green Forum", have asked the Croatian parliament to withdraw from fast-track procedure the government-sponsored bill on farmland, saying that it encouraged land speculations, local corruption and irreversible reduction of farmland.