PRESS CONFERENCE FOR GERMAN REPORTERS TAKES PLACE IN DUBROVNIK

DUBROVNIK, Sept 29 (Hina) - The war in Croatia was over and Croatia, on the road of development, wanted to consolidate its international position and aspired to Atlantic and European integrations, deputy head of the Croatian President's Office Vesna Skare-Ozbolt told some 20 German journalists visiting the Dubrovnik County, south Croatia, at a press conference in Dubrovnik on Sunday evening. Croatia's first duty was to reach an agreement on the end of UNTAES' mandate in the Danubian region in order to achieve its territorial integrity, Skare-Ozbolt said and added that Croatia continued to incite development processes in Bosnia-Herzegovina and was interested to further actively implement the Washington and Dayton agreements. "Croatia is entering a new period and is an active participant and factor of the peace process, and what follows is development and the entry into world integration processes, the first of which is the admission into the Council of Europe", Skare-Ozbolt said. Croatian Deputy Tourism Minister Marijan Baut informed the German reporters about the current state of Croatia's tourism. He pointed out that before the war 10 million tourists, who realized 65 million overnight stays, would visit Croatia per year. In the first eight months of this year, Croatia was visited by 3,163,000 tourists with 18,300,000 overnight stays. 3,080,000 more tourists, 22 million overnight stays, were expected by the end of the year, Baut said, but added that this was only 45 per cent of the pre-war results. He pointed out that the goals for 1997 included to further place Croatia on the international market as a completely safe and attractive tourist country, to increase tourist business with Germany, Italy, Great Britain and the Benelux countries, to return large tour-operators and to increase tourist trade from 25 to 45 per cent more than this year. Present at today's press conference were also the manager of the Croatian Tourist Union Zeljko Toncinic, Dubrovnik County Prefect Jure Buric and Dubrovnik Mayor Nikola Obuljen. The German journalists' visit to Croatia was organized by the Croatian Embassy in Bonn, the Foreign and Tourism Ministries and the Croatian Tourist Union. (hina) ha 292035 MET sep 96