ZAGREB, Jan 26 (Hina) - Croatia's Vice Premier and Finance Minister Borislav Skegro on Wednesday said his ministry was already ready fifteen days ago to be assumed by a new minister and government. It prepared a report on most
important activities and a survey of projects that are under way. The new minister will find the organised and well prepared ministry with a total of 7,700 employees who work with the Finance Ministry, Skegro told a news conference. "The new minister will receive the backing of those people. Whoever he/she may be, I wish them much success and I wish they be better than I," Skegro said. He stressed that at the moment the state budged had no incurred debt with the Croatian National Bank. The outgoing minister commented on articles published by some media and announcements of possible rescheduling of Croatia's external debt, describing such statements as "friv
ZAGREB, Jan 26 (Hina) - Croatia's Vice Premier and Finance Minister
Borislav Skegro on Wednesday said his ministry was already ready
fifteen days ago to be assumed by a new minister and government.
It prepared a report on most important activities and a survey of
projects that are under way.
The new minister will find the organised and well prepared ministry
with a total of 7,700 employees who work with the Finance Ministry,
Skegro told a news conference.
"The new minister will receive the backing of those people. Whoever
he/she may be, I wish them much success and I wish they be better
than I," Skegro said.
He stressed that at the moment the state budged had no incurred debt
with the Croatian National Bank.
The outgoing minister commented on articles published by some media
and announcements of possible rescheduling of Croatia's external
debt, describing such statements as "frivolous" and "a
continuation of pre-election campaign."
Skegro maintained that Croatia is not a heavily indebted country.
He corroborated it with the data that the foreign debt totalled 8.87
billion US dollars, and of it some 8.1 billion dollars go for
medium-term and long-term debts.
The matter of issued state guarantees raised several questions at
the news conference.
According to a deputy minister, Mijo Jukic, the government issued
over five-billion-kuna-worth guarantees in 1999 (or approximately
666 million dollars).
Skegro stressed the Finance Ministry had strongly opposed quasi-
guarantees for the rehabilitation of various companies and
resisted fierce pressure from, for instance, shipyards. He and
other senior officials of the Ministry were exposed to threats
because of their stands.
An assistant to Skegro, Martina Dalic, informed the conference of
figures on macroeconomic trends which show that the economy is
currently in the area of a positive trend. Supposing that there will
be no change of conditions, we can anticipate a two-percent growth
rate in 2000, she told reporters.
Jukic presented data on budget receipts and payments in 1999, which
came to 52.3 billion kuna (less than eight billion dollars). The
receipts were executed with the 98,61 percent of the plan, payments
with 98.78 percent of the plan. What remained was 648 million kuna
(86 million dollars), Jukic added
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