BELGRADE, February 23 (Tanjug) - Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica said today in Skoplje that Yugoslavia's long years of isolation and absence from numerous initiatives for the regional cooperation in Southeastern Europe "degraded most of them to the level of a sanitary cordon and impeded quicker regional integration, and consequently prevented the entire region from joining the process of European integration".

Speaking at the afternoon summit session, devoted to the strengthening of regional economic cooperation, Kostunica stressed Yugoslavia's wish actively to make up for the time wasted and overcome barriers to the development of regional trade and economic cooperation towards a faster and more comprehensive development of Southeastern Europe.

"To that end, I am convinced, it is of utmost importance to secure support from the international community, the European Union and its institutions in the first place, which should focus on the development of the regional infrastructure that would encourage the flow of people and goods, as well as economic activities throughout the region," Kostunica said and added that the FRY, "as a country at the crossroads of important trans-European transit corridors, is ready to embark immediately on creating a proper legal framework for foreign public and private investments and establish full cooperation with its neighbouring and other countries in Southeastern Europe in running these projects".

Stressing that all people in Yugoslavia are aware that the country must not depend on humanitarian assistance, but rather gain economic self-reliance and self-sustainability, Kostunica said that we had to carry out privatization and the restructure of our economy, broaden job opportunities and enable people to live on their work.

Speaking about the causes for Yugoslavia's adverse economic situation, Kostunica mentioned 56 years of wrong economic policies, tight state control in the past decade, sanctions that devastated the economy and unbelievable inflation rates. "And than, finally, at the top of it all, the country was bombed ", he said.

"Preliminary and rather conservative estimates say that the total damage inflicted on our country was close to 30 billion dollars. It is clear that we are not starting from scratch, but from the red. Therefore it is crucial for us to revive economic flows and production, open new workplaces and make a breakthrough on other markets, some new and some of those that we lost due to the sanctions", Yugoslav President underscored.

Kostunica also said it was necessary to redouble the efforts to remove the existing obstacles to a more efficient flow of goods, and to encourage cooperation and integration of important infrastructural systems such as power and telecommunications and transport networks in order to support regional development and that the economic capacity of important natural resources such as the Danube River had to be fully employed in the process of development through multifaceted cooperation between the countries of the region and the joint initiative towards the European Union and developed Western European countries.

"It is certain that the accelerated economic and social development of the region is a principal element in resolving social and economic problems linked with underdevelopment. These problems are the source of political extremism and all kinds of criminal activities against which we have to fight together, since they can diminish our chances of joining the European integration processes soon", Kostunica said in his speech to the part of the summit of the Southeast Europe in Skoplje devoted to the economics.