Positive trends are a consequence of recovery in foreign demand.
According to the latest data from the Central Bureau of Statistics, the annual growth of the industrial production accelerated in June to 4.1 percent. For the 17th consecutive month, the trend of positive annual growth rate of the industrial production has been continued. According to the seasonally adjusted data, after two consecutive drops on the monthly level, the industrial production in June increased by 0.3 percent compared to May. Monthly growth was primarily supported by the increase of production in the energy sector (7.4 percent) and in capital goods (3.3 percent), reports index.hr on July 29, 2016.
With the June data, the statistics related to the industrial production for the first half of this year are complete. During the cumulative period from January to June, the total industrial production increased by 5.2 percent compared to the same period of 2015.
Positive trends are probably due to the recovery in foreign demand in the countries which are Croatia’s major foreign trade partners, but also the result of the decline in inventories over the last year. The annual growth of the total industrial production in the first half of the year was supported by growth in all categories: permanent durable consumer goods (0.2 percent), energy (1.6 percent), intermediate goods (4.3 percent) and non-durable consumer goods (5.7 percent).
Finally, particularly encouraging is the fact that the highest annual growth was recorded in the category of capital goods, which had a double digit increase (10.2 percent) in the first six months of 2016 compared to the first half of last year.
“With the predicted continuation of favourable trends in foreign demand in the second half of the year, we expect further growth of industrial production, which will ultimately result in a positive contribution to GDP growth”, said analysts of the Raiffeisenbank Croatia.
