LOWER HOUSE BEGINS DISCUSSION ON CRO RAILWAYS RECONSTRUCTION

ZAGREB, Nov 10 (Hina) - The Croatian national parliament's House of Representatives on Friday morning started a discussion on a motion on the reconstruction and modernisation of the Croatian Railways (HZ), aiming at the establishment of a more efficient railway system which could compete at the market. Great expenses of business activities, great losses, poor use of capacity and low productivity are main reasons for a poor situation in the HZ, Croatian Maritime, Transportation and Communication Minister Alojz Tusek said, elaborating the motion. He explained that a project of the reconstruction of the HZ between 1998 and 2000 did not succeed, despite the support of international financial institutions, therefore the government had prepared a new strategy for the reconstruction of the HZ for the period between 2000 and 2005. The strategy aims at decreasing the number of employees by about 7,000, the decrease of railway from the current 2,300 to 2,000 kilometres in 2005, the decrease of HZ income from 2.7 billion kuna to 2.95 billion kuna, as well as the increase of productivity. Only this way, an efficient railway system can be achieved, the Minister said. In order to achieve this, about 4.8 billion kuna need to be invested in the Croatian railways in the next five years, Minister Tusek concluded. (hina) it