PRIME MINISTER MATESA VISITS PAKRAC AREA

PAKRAC, Oct 6 (Hina) - The Croatian government's priority in the liberated areas is employment and therefore it will support big public companies which can employ workers, particularly demobilized soldiers, Prime Minister Zlatko Matesa said during a visit to Pakrac on Sunday. Matesa laid a foundation stone of a 46-apartment residential building intended for war victims. The construction of the building, expected to be completed next year, would cost 14 million kuna which would be provided by the Ministry of Defence. At Pakrac's Roman Catholic cemetery, Matesa laid a corner stone of a memorial to soldiers who had died defending Western Slavonia from Serb aggression. In talks with county and municipal authorities, Matesa supported a development strategy devised by the Pakrac municipal authorities, pledging government aid in financing a project of building the town's industrial zone. He added that it was necessary to urgenly rebuild the town centre which had been badly damaged during Serb attacks. The local authorities said that land mines posed the biggest obstacle to the economic development and postwar reconstruction of the area. They stressed that about 1,000 heavily damaged houses had been rebuilt with funds from the Ministry of Development and Reconstruction, but that none of them had been handed over to their tenants because of various problems. (hina) vm 061512 MET oct 96