A bright economic forecast for Croatia’s third quarter.
GDP in the third quarter will grow about three percent, and the overall growth for 2015 will be higher than what some analysts expect – around 1.5 percent – says investor Nenad Bakić on his blog Eclectica. Bakić explains his estimates for the third quarter primarily with the successful tourist season, since the total income from tourism this year will exceed eight billion euros, reports Jutarnji List on September 30, 2015.
“Let us assume, therefore, that the net contribution of tourism to GDP in 2015 will be about 350-400 million euros more than in 2014. Almost all of this will be concentrated in the third quarter”, explains Bakić. According to his calculations, since the GDP in the third quarter of last year was around 89.5 billion kuna, which was 27.2 percent of annual GDP, an increase of about 350-400 million euros could lead to about 3 to 3.3 percent growth in the third quarter.
The GDP growth, says Bakić, will be also affected by low oil prices and the household consumption, which is the largest item in GDP and is finally growing after a long decline. Bakić even claims that his forecast of the GDP growth in the third quarter is actually pretty conservative. According to his estimates, if the growth in the fourth quarter were to be one percent, the annual level of GDP would increase by 1.5 percent.
“We do not comment on other experts’ estimates. Our estimate is that, after the great tourist season, the GDP in the third quarter will grow by about 1.5 to 2 percent, and by one percent in the whole year”, says Hrvoje Stojić, an analyst at Hypo Bank.
Estimates made by analysts of Zagrebačka Banka are also well below Bakić’s forecast. According to their analysis, GDP in 2015 will grow by only 0.8 percent, and by 0.9 percent in 2016.
