Croatian National Bank Governor is getting more optimistic about Croatia’s GDP growth.
Governor of the Croatian National Bank (HNB) Boris Vujčić said on Thursday that HNB would soon come out with a new projection of GDP growth which will be higher than the previous estimate, reports Index.hr on June 9, 2016.
“The change will be made due to the results achieved in the first quarter and the results that we have in April”, said Vujčić. According to the current assessment of the central bank, this year GDP is expected to grow by 1.8 percent.
The Governor said that Croatia currently has the growth of economic activities, which in the first quarter was primarily based on growth in domestic demand. “We also see the trends of recovery in credit lending. In the first quarter, for the first time in seven years, we can see a significant growth in both corporate loans and household loans”, said Vujčić.
The governor did not want to give any forecasts regarding the forthcoming visit of representatives of credit rating agencies. “I agree with the assessment that, on the one hand, we have economic indicators that are currently good: GDP growth, reduction of deficit. On the other hand, there are negative indicators, which is the political situation”, said Vujčić asked about the upcoming visit of credit rating agencies and the opinion of Finance Minister Zdravko Marić who said that good economic indicators were more important than current negative political situation.
Asked if the economic indicators were strong enough, Vujčić said they were stronger than before. “At the moment, they are certainly stronger than they were when the agencies last gave their rating. That is obvious”, he noted.
