Another good month for Croatia’s industrial sector.
Industrial production in Croatia in April rose by 4.9 percent year on year, which was the 15th consecutive month of growth, although the growth has slowed down somewhat when compared to the month before, reports tportal.hr on May 30, 2016.
The Central Bureau of Statistics announced on Monday that industrial production, according to adjusted data, in April fell by 2.9 percent compared to the previous month, while compared to April last year it increased by 4.9 percent. This was a slower growth than a month ago, when production increased 6.9 percent year on year, and was slower growth than expected. Four macroeconomists who participated in a survey estimated on average that in April industrial production would grow by 7.7 percent year on year. Their growth estimates were in the range of between 5.0 to 9.2 percent.
The increase in April continued the growth of industrial production for the 15th consecutive month on an annual basis, which has not been recorded since 2007, two years before the six-year recession began.
In April, the largest increase, by 8.2 percent year on year, was recorded in the production of intermediate goods, followed by production of non-durable consumer goods (6.7 percent), Production of capital goods rose by 5.1 percent year on year, while the production of durable consumer goods increased by 0.6 percent. However, production of energy fell by 3.2 percent year on year.
In the first four months of this year, industrial production increased by 6.4 percent compared to the same period last year, which continued the trend of growth of production which has now entered its third year. Last year, industrial production increased by 2.6 percent, while in 2014 it increased by 1.3 percent.
“In the remaining part of the year, assuming a further recovery in foreign demand, we expect a positive annual growth rate of industrial production, which should support the positive growth of real GDP”, said analysts of the Raiffeisenbank Bank.
