ZAGREB, March 15, 2018 – The Croatian National Bank (HNB) Council met on Thursday to discuss recent monetary and economic indicators, saying that the slowing down of economic activity in the final quarter of last year might only be temporary as the beginning of 2018 saw further increases in business and consumer optimism and employment.
After the stable growth of economic activity in the year to September 2017, in the final quarter of last year the annual real GDP growth rate slowed down to 2.0%, increasing by 2.8% in the whole of 2017. The final quarter saw a strong slowing down in the annual growth of gross fixed capital investment, mostly due to the lower absorption of EU funding than at the end of 2016, the Council said in a statement.
The slowing down of real activity in the fourth quarter might only be of a temporary nature given that the beginning of 2018 saw further increases in business and consumer optimism and employment and a further decrease in the number of unemployed persons, the statement added.
The HNB said that consumer prices fell by 0.2% in January 2018 compared with December 2017, mostly due to seasonal decreases in clothing and footwear prices, while annual inflation slowed down to 1.1%. Domestic lending to companies and households continued to increase and favourable fiscal developments also continued at the start of the year, the central bank said.
