As Ana Blaskovic/Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 8th of January, 2019, the Croatian capital city of Zagreb exports 33.2 billion kuna of goods annually, whereas all of the counties of coastal Croatia together export only 15.9 billion kuna annually as a whole.
Despite ever louder warnings that the Croatian domestic economic model is growing weaker because of excessive reliance on tourism, it’s likely that not only will that trend change soon, but that the changes will continue to strengthen in the future.
When analysing the figures on commodity exports, the Croatian Chamber of Commerce (HGK) points out that Zagreb exports 33.2 billion kuna of goods annually, twice more than the total exports of all of the counties of coastal Croatia put together – just 15.9 billion kuna. While the commodity export of Zagreb stands for one third of Croatia’s total exports, these startling regional differences are so high that, for example, Croatia’s southernmost county of Dubrovnik-Neretva, fails to even produce 157 million kuna’s worth of goods, let alone export it.
If exports are looked at per capita, then the largest regional exporter is Varaždin County, followed by Zagreb and then Međimurje County. With 172.5 euro per head, Dubrovnik-Neretva County is far, far below the national export duty, of 3,360 euro per capita. The Croatian Chamber of Commerce says that Zagreb is far ahead of all of the others for the simple reason that data on foreign trade is recorded at the headquarters of companies, which logically gravitate to the capital.
Zagreb has the largest foreign trade surplus among Croatia’s counties, standing at 46.8 billion kuna. Following are Sisak-Moslavina with 1.2 billion kuna, Brod-Posavina with 868 million kuna and Međimurska with 766 million kuna.
“Despite the shortcomings of the statistics, including the temporary relocation of large companies, it can be concluded that Croatia’s accession to the EU and the period of recovery of EU-level demand were the most profitable for Lika-Senj, Zagreb County, and Brod-Posavina, which have achieved the largest export growth rates,” stated Zvonimir Savić.
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Click here for the original article by Ana Blaskovic for Poslovni Dnevnik
