Croatia's trade deficit rose by 1% y/y to HRK19.3bn (€2.56bn) in January-April from HRK19.2bn a year ago, data from the statistics office showed on June 9.
Exports and imports rose robustly in 2015 and continued rising in 2016, but at a slower pace. In 2016, the foreign trade deficit rose by 4.7% y/y to HRK55.5bn while exports rose by 5.7% y/y to HRK92.8bn and by 5.4% y/y to HRK148.3bn. During 2017, Croatia’s foreign trade volume started to escalate again thanks to the better than expected GDP growth prospects.
Exports rose by 16% y/y to HRK32bn in January-April, while imports went up by 10% y/y to HRK52bn. Exports to the EU rose 11% y/y to HRK21bn, while imports from the EU rose 7% y/y to HRK40bn. Exports to non-EU markets rose by 27% y/y to HRK11.4bn, whereas imports from outside the EU rose by 22% y/y to HRK11.1bn.
The coverage of imports by exports stood at 62.5% in the first four months of 2017, higher than the 59.2% recorded a year earlier.
GDP growth in Croatia accelerated to 2.9% y/y in 2016 from 1.6% in 2015 thanks to the private consumption growth, recovery in foreign demand and favourable tourism season.
However, growth decelerated to 2.5% y/y in Q1 from 3.4% in the last quarter of 2016. Export of goods grew 14.9% y/y in real terms in Q1, higher than 7.2% annual growth recorded in the previous quarter, thanks to the recovery in foreign demand.
The European Commission (EC) forecasts a 2.9% real GDP growth in Croatia for 2017 while it estimates exports to grow 5.2% y/y in real terms, lower than 6.7% in 2016, and imports to grow 6.6%, also lower than 7.3% in 2016.
The EC expects the troubles facing Croatia’s largest private company Agrokor to weigh on growth. However, the economic recovery is set to remain strong and broad-based, the EC said on May 11.
Croatia's Foreign Trade | |||
HRK thousand | Jan-Apr/16 | Jan-Apr/17 | y/y |
Exports | 27,805,164 | 32,205,794 | 16% |
Exports to the EU | 18,806,062 | 20,808,826 | 11% |
Exports to the non-EU markets | 8,999,101 | 11,396,967 | 27% |
Imports | 46,961,142 | 51,494,516 | 10% |
Imports from the EU | 37,874,683 | 40,432,538 | 7% |
Imports from the non-EU markets | 9,086,459 | 11,061,977 | 22% |
Balance | -19,155,978 | -19,288,722 | 1% |
Coverage of import by export (%) | 59.2 | 62.5 | 6% |
source: dzs |