ITALY TO INCREASE ECONOMIC COOPERATION WITH FORMER YU COUNTRIES

SPLIT, Dec 9 (Hina) - Foreign trade between Croatia and Italy in the first nine months of this year amounted to US$1.55 billion, which is 18 percent less than in the same period in 1998, Fabio Gironi, the director of the Italian Foreign Trade Institute Office in Zagreb, told businessmen in the southern Croatian port of Split on Thursday. Italian export into Croatia at more than US$900 million is twice the amount of import, but Italy remains the biggest importer of Croatian goods, and with Germany is at the pole position of Croatia's trade with the world. Gironi briefed Split's businessmen on Italian laws which incite Italian companies to establish mixed societies or other forms of cooperation with domestic entrepreneurs in countries outside the European Union (EU). The Italian government recently forwarded into parliament a bill which incites such cooperation with countries from the former Yugoslav federation. To that effect, Italy will invest 400 billion lire in the 2000-2002 period. Gironi said the EU recently adopted a programme called "Reconstruction" which should incite economic development in Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Macedonia, and Yugoslavia. (hina) ha mm