CRO GOVT DISCUSSES OWNERSHIP TRANSFORMATION OF ZAGREB FAIR

ZAGREB, March 28 (Hina) - At Thursday's session, the Croatian government forwarded to the Croatian Parliament a Bill on transformation of ownership of the Zagreb Fair. The Zagreb Fair would be transformed into a public liability company owned by the Republic of Croatia and Zagreb city. The Croatian Finance Minister, Bozo Prka, informed the government that nine public corporations had submitted data on their returns for the year 1995. The Croatian Post and Telecommunications (HPT) yielded returns of 360 million kunas (DM 97.3 million), the Croatian Forestry company yielded 18 million kunas (DM 4.8 million), the Peoples' Papers 73 million kunas (DM 19.7 million), the Croatian Radio and Television (HRT 45 million kunas (DM 12.2 million) and the Croatian Lottery yielded 29 million kunas (DM 7.8 million). As had been suggested by Premier Zlatko Matesa, the government decided to request that a complete report on the business of public corporations be made by 15 May. Recalling the rally of peasants who demanded that the state protect them from imports of agricultural goods, Matesa said that the issue of protection was very complicated. He said that the peasants as producers demanded protection, but as consumers they did not consider the protection of domestic produce, for example, they did not want to buy tractors produced in the country. The government accepted a financial statement of Croatia's energy supply for 1995. The liberation of central and southern Croatia contributed significantly to the improvement of the situation in the energy supply sector. Sixty-eight percent of overall needs for energy had been fulfilled last year by Croatia producing its own raw energy. (hina) lm jn 281712 MET mar 96