Construction of Zagreb-Sisak Motorway Announced For February 2006

Construction of a 46 kilometre long motorway from Zagreb to Sisak will begin in February next year, Prime Minister Ivo Sanader announced on Friday. The EUR 200 million road is expected to be completed some time after 2008.

Under a new plan, Zagreb and Velika Gorica, about 15 kilometres southeast of the capital on the route to Sisak, will be connected by four roads, Sanader said at a press conference.

All this will facilitate access to Zagreb's Pleso Airport, whose modernisation could start next year, Transport Minister Božidar Kalmeta said. This project, estimated at between EUR 160 and 180 million, provides for the construction of a new terminal and an apron.

Asked to comment on a recent statement by National Bank Governor Željko Rohatinski, that the International Monetary Fund used to tolerate a large budget deficit partly because some of the funds were used for roads that at the time were being constructed by US company Bechtel, Sanader said that the budget deficit was the government's rather than the IMF's business and that the IMF had not dictated Croatia.

 'We are doing everything for our own sake and we want to cut the deficit,' the prime minister stressed, adding that his government had reduced the deficit from 6.3 per cent of Gross Domestic Product in 2003 to 4.2 per cent in 2005.

Sanader indirectly announced that the existing stand-by arrangement with the IMF would be extended.(Hina)

News from media