VINKOVCI, May 14 (Hina) - Prime Minister Ivica Racan said on Wednesday the approach to the estimate of damage caused to crops by the current drought had to be careful.
VINKOVCI, May 14 (Hina) - Prime Minister Ivica Racan said on
Wednesday the approach to the estimate of damage caused to crops by
the current drought had to be careful. #L#
One should avoid auctioning from county to county, face the real
damage and see how much it can be alleviated, said Racan, who also
chairs the government's crisis-management committee.
The committee held a session in the eastern city of Vinkovci today,
which was attended by prefects of nine counties which have been or
will be declared disaster areas due to the drought.
Asked by the press if the state budget could be tapped for 400
million kuna (EUR52.6 mln) to compensate for 30 percent of the
drought damage, which is one of the agriculture ministry's
proposals, the PM reiterated his cabinet would insist on real
damage estimates.
He said the 1.4 billion kuna (EUR184.2 mln) estimate of the total
damage caused by drought throughout the country was unrealistic.
Racan said his cabinet would define a desirable percentage at which
the government would participate in damage compensation. He
declined to outline the steps the government would take to
compensate for the damage, asking the press to wait until
tomorrow's cabinet session.
The government's crisis-management committee began its visit to
Vukovar-Srijem County by viewing sugar-beet fields.
Racan said long-term measures had to be adopted to ameliorate the
effects of the drought as much as possible.
He called on farmers to insure their fields, saying that only five
to six percent of Croatian farmers insured their crops, as against
more than 90 percent in Europe.
(EUR1 = 7.6 kuna)
(hina) ha