New Finance Minister declares he will fight inflation and not the central bank

The new Finance Minister, Grzegorz Kolodko, yesterday at last held a press conference to announce his economic policies. He surprised many by declaring that he would continue the approach of his predecessor, Marek Belka, but would add a package of of anti-crisis measures. However, Minister Kolodko failed to make anything more than just a broad policy statement, devoid of detail. Kolodko promised that he would maintain tight financial discipline and would seek to lower the budget deficit from zl 43 billion to zl. 40 billion. His policies to help enterprises will include the introduction of a tax reward to allow companies, which do not have debts to the state, to count the debts of other companies towards them as their costs. Another plank of Kolodko's policies will be a tax credit for new small and medium sized companies that have up to 50 employees. Large companies were not left out of the picture, as the government plans to help them by underwriting bank credits. Once Kolodko declared that he will concentrate on fighting inflation rather than the central bank, investor fears evaporated and the zloty began to strengthen against foreign currencies. (Rzeczpospolita, p. A1) P.W.