Other signs of financial reform are the ending of price controls on petrol, bread and milk, fertilisers and telephone charges part of the agreement signed recently with the World Trade Organisation. Farmers were worried about the effect of deregulation of fertiliser prices, but if Croatia is serious about being considered as a candidate for EU membership, then that will be the least of their worries. Making Croatian agriculture as efficient as the Dutch, for example, seems hard to imagine, and yet that is what accession will call for. Prime Minister Ra an expressed his confidence that Croatia could meet the necessary standards, in his first major speech of the year. He claimed success in meeting foreign debt payments, but warned that a lot more needed to be done.
Exports are around half of imports.
Croatian industry has a long way to go, too, before it is competitive. The electorate seems willing to take the chance on the reforms for now. The recent opinion polls, reported in all the papers, show half of those surveyed against any new elections. However, the number of those who would like a change has risen to almost 40 per cent, which is a warning to the future. Marble ship capsizes Finally, the news has been filled with the tragedy of a Croatian-registered ship carrying marble from Italy, which capsized off Ancona with the loss of three lives.