All recent indicators show that the arrangement is expected to be completed in October whereby the incumbent government would be the first Croatian government which managed to finish a stand-by arrangement with the IMF, the press was told at the ministry.
The ministry said that last year's economic growth was 4.3 per cent and that the budgetary deficit was 4.1 per cent, as planned.
The ministry announced that a Croatian delegation would attend the IMF and World Bank Assembly in Washington on April 22 and 23, and hold talks on the New York Stock Exchange on the possibility of listing Croatian oil company INA's shares on it.
The IMF Mission and the European Commission in their reports on Croatia positively assess the implementation of the government's economic programme but have reservations about the restructuring of shipyards and the pace of the privatisation of INA and Croatian Telecom, said the ministry.
It added that the government did not set itself deadlines to privatise the two companies because it wanted to achieve a better price for them given that both generate significant profits and their values are rising.
The ministry underlined that another reason for a quality estimate of the two companies' values was the fact that a considerable amount of funds from their privatisation was intended to settle the debt to pensioners.
The ministry said that a decision on the further privatisation of INA would be made in June.