CRO PRESIDENT SPEAKS ON DEVELOPMENT OF TOURISM

ZAGREB, Sept 24 (Hina) - Croatia had all the preconditions for a successful development of tourism and this depended, as in all fields, on private initiative and on people, Croatian President Franjo Tudjman pointed out while concluding a session of the Presidential Council on "Croatia's Tourism - Situation and Perspectives" held in Zagreb on Tuesday. The session gathered more than 150 participants connected with tourism in various ways, and about 40 took part in the discussion. "By establishing an independent and sovereign Croatian state we have also provided conditions for the development of tourism", Tudjman said, pointing out that neither the monarchist nor the socialist Yugoslavia cared for Croatia's interests and needs. "It was necessary to normalize relations with Serbia and Yugoslavia so that before the world we could remove doubts that Croatia was still in war and in a dangerous region which cannot host normal traffic and tourism", said the President. He added that tourism was an integrative economic component of strategic interest for the overall benefit and development of Croatia. "We do have problems, especially in tourism, which is in a period of transition", Tudjman stressed pointing out that even in the field of tourism there had been opposition to the privatization and sale of hotel enterprises to returnees-emigrants. "I had to intervene on several occasions so that solutions in the interest of both the return of people and the privatization could be found". Croatia was an interesting country not only due to its natural and historical beauties, but also because it had achieved its sovereignty. "We shall be still subject to pressure and these days Carl Bildt is saying that the European Union must make a strategy on regional integration south of Slovenia and north of Greece", President Tudjman warned, stressing that this too was "a sign of what existed in Europe". (hina) ha mm 241859 MET sep 96