CROATIA'S AIR CORRIDORS ARE SAFE - MINISTER LUZAVEC

SPLIT, May 14 (Hina) - Croatia's Transport Minister Zeljko Luzavec on Friday opened ceremonially the newly-built centre of the airport flight control in Split. The state-of-art equipment is installed in the centre, valued at 50 million kuna (approximately 7 million dollars). At the ceremony Luzavec said a big project launched by Croatia's flight control management had been completed in this way helping Croatia to have very secure air corridors in the world. After the Homeland War we had to renew the entire system. The job which is near the completion, has required 22 million dollars taken from a loan granted by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, whereas Croatia has earmarked additional 10 million dollars from the budget for this purpose, the minister said. Besides, 115 young air traffic controllers have had additional training in Great Britain and Germany. So far Croatia has not been able to renew the north air corridor which brings more money. Given that the situation has been changing since recently, the minister said his country was being completely ready for the re-allocation of air space in this part of Europe, and was poised to be included into the most important corridors in the area. The flight control management's head Drazen Ramljak, said the job which had been started three years before had been done at a world level. During the war, facilities of flight control in Croatia were either partially destroyed or completely demolished such as those in Zadar and Dubrovnik. In 1998 there were 130 flights over Croatia or 35 percent of the number in the pre-war period, Ramljak said. (hina) ms