We are pleased to see tangible results in the reduction of time which citizens need to complete legal business involving real estate at different courts, and now also via the Internet, the World Bank director for Croatia, Bulgaria and Romania, Anand K. Seth, said while speaking about the results of the government project which started in January 2003.
Seth said that one of the goals of the project, which is financed by the EU, Sweden, Germany, Norway, the Netherlands and the World Bank, was to promote investment in Croatia.
Participants in the conference agreed that safe ownership rights and an efficient land registry would reduce obstacles to direct foreign investment.
Croatian Deputy Prime Minister Damir Polancec said that 94 million kuna had been invested in the project so far and that this year alone another 92 million would be invested.
In one of her first public statements, the new Justice Minister Ana Lovrin said that this was one of the most successful government projects and one of the most important ones for the judicial reform.
Thanks to the ministry's measures, the number of outstanding land registry cases has been reduced by more than 150,000. The number of such cases in Zagreb has been reduced by 37 percent since 2003, from 130,000 to 80,000, the minister said.
The minister said that the backlog of cases would be solved by the end of this year, that all land registers would be digitalised, that the issuing of registered land certificates would take one day, and that the registration of ownership rights would take no more than a week.
According to the ministry's data, the time needed to register sale has been reduced in the last five years from 150 days to 25 days.
The project is now expected to focus on the development of a single information system that will efficiently incorporate the cadastral and land registry systems.
The Zagreb conference was also attended by representatives of the European Commission, who will hold the sixth donor conference on Friday together with other donors supporting this project.