Belgrade, August 3 - The Serb government brought the decision at Friday's meeting to check public utilities price increase in Belgrade.

"The decision was made because the government consent, necessary as defined by the law, had not been given to the increase of utilities prices," Djindjic told reporters.

The Serbian government has decided the terms of the future contract between drugs manufacturers, the Health Insurance Bureau, the health Ministry and health care institutions, so that there will be no further problems on that matter.

"The funds are rather slender in comparison with our needs in the health sector. However, we hope to co-operate with the manufacturers and to manage to reschedule part of debt," Djindjic said, reiterating that there will be sufficient supplies of the essential drugs in the coming period.

The government also made a decision as to the distribution of resources, partly budgetary, partly those gathered from internal donations, for the relief of the victims of the floods and other natural disasters in the past two months.

As the budget afforded aid allocation of only YUD50m, and considering that the damage in the first half of the year was assessed at around YUD6 billion, the Serb government appealed to Serbian businesses operating with profits to join the aid collection campaign.

"The Serbian government, with the help of the citizens and enterprises, has in only one month collected about YUD310m of aid to the afflicted areas," Djindjic said. With the support of enterprises that have joined the relief campaign, YUD 121,732,000 has been raised in cash, YUD8m in commodities, YUD20m in building equipment and material, whereas YUD100m have been drawn from extraordinary budgetary resources for flood plain regulation. About YUD60m has been earmarked for road repairs.