DANUBE-SAVA CANAL PROJECT PRESENTED TO BAVARIAN DEVELOPMENT MINISTER

MINISTER $ ZAGREB, Aug 19 (Hina) - Croatia's project on the building of a Danube-Sava canal was presented to visiting Bavarian Development and Environment Protection Minister Thomas Goppel in Zagreb on Tuesday along with possibilities on cooperation in the project's realization between Croatia and Bavaria. The head of the Croatian Waterway Administration, Zorislav Balic, and the head of the Danube-Sava canal project, Josip Marusic, said the sketch design was finished. The main project was being worked out, they said, adding an international competition for the building of the canal would then be launched. According to Marusic, the building of the canal would begin in the spring of next year. The 61.5-km-long, USD-600-million-worth canal would stretch from Vukovar (on the Danube) to Samac (on the Sava river, along the border with Bosnia-Herzegovina). The canal will provide the shortest possible navigable waterway between the Danube region and the Adriatic Sea. Navigation from the Sava river toward western Europe will be shortened for 417 km, and 85 km toward eastern Europe. With the Danube-Sava canal Croatia plans to connect central Europe with the Adriatic Sea and attract goods via competition prices. Potential commodity exchange on the canal could be seven million tons a year, and it would significantly intensify traffic through the northern Adriatic port of Rijeka and partly through the port of Ploce in the south. The first idea of a Danube-Sava canal was registered in 1737. (hina) ha jn 191648 MET aug 97