Kosor called the press conference to present all the government measures aimed at encouraging the economic recovery. She stressed several times that her conference was not a response to Thursday's presentation by Croatian National Bank (HNB) Governor Zeljko Rohatinski in Opatija, who said that the Croatian economy was stagnating and revised the projected GDP growth rate for this year down to 1%.

"I don't want to communicate with the Governor through the media. We spoke recently and he did not make such catastrophic projections then. Despite the HNB's independence, which we additionally reinforced last year through constitutional changes, no one is an island and everyone should make their contribution to the economic recovery of Croatia," the prime minister said.

The government stands by the projected GDP growth rate of 1.5%, which has so far been supported by the HNB and other relevant institutions, and this projection is based on the successful implementation of the Economic Recovery Programme and the major investment projects planned, she added.

The government expects this year's budget deficit to remain within HRK 14.9 billion, or 4.3% of the GDP, and is not considering a budget revision, but should there be a budget revision, it would be only downwards, Kosor said, stressing the importance of the adopted Fiscal Responsibility Act that should prevent the budget gap from increasing.

Responding to questions from the press, Kosor said that no one had raised the issue of abolishing the foreign currency clause, but did not say how the government would have responded to it. She also said that the number of unemployed people should soon be brought down to under 300,000.

Kosor dedicated most of her press conference to repeating the measures that had been taken so far as part of the government's Economic Recovery Programme and emphasising its positive results.

The profit of the 21 public companies increased from HRK 754 million in 2009 to 2 billion in 2010, while at the same time their losses were reduced from HRK 951 million to 685 million. The national postal service HP and the Financial Agency (FINA) have been transformed from loss makers into companies operating at a profit. The power company HEP has repaid HRK 1.8 billion in debt since 2009 without increasing electricity prices, Kosor said.

Speaking of the measures to ease the tax burden on companies and citizens, she said that parafiscal duties had been cut by HRK 500 million, HRK 1.9 billion had been saved by abolishing the so-called crisis tax and HRK 1 billion as a result of changes to the tax system.

HRK 1.7 billion has been saved by cutting salaries and not paying Christmas bonuses in the public sector, HRK 800 million by reducing privileged pensions, HRK 100 million has been saved on public procurement, and HRK 500 million by streamlining the health services, the prime minister said.

Last year the fiscal deficit was 4.9% of the GDP, which was lower than in the EU 27, while this year it should be 0.5% lower. Public debt was 41.2% of the GDP, which was also below the EU average.