September the 16th, 2024 – S&P has raised the Croatian credit rating in the long term from BBB+ to A-. This is a fact being widely celebrated by the government.
As Poslovni Dnevnik writes, On Friday last week, the Standard & Poor’s agency raised the Croatian credit rating from ‘BBB+’ to ‘A-‘, with a positive outlook. It also noted that deepened integration with European and global partners encouraged the implementation of reforms and resulted in wider institutional improvement in Croatia. Prime Minister Andrej Plenković held a media conference on this occasion.
The Prime Minister said that S&P raising the Croatian credit rating is “great news”. “Their rating is historic, and when it comes to Croatia, it’s the first time that one of the three agencies has come in with an A rating, and an A- rating with positive prospects at that. With this new rating, Croatia has earned an above-average quality credit rating and brought further quality to the domestic economy.”
“Responsible public finance management policies, reduction of public debt, tax relief, progress in the integration process, the achievement of strategic goals that had an economic dimension… In doing all of that, we raised Croatia by several steps, by as many as five degrees to be specific,” said Plenković.
“Why is this news great? it means cheaper borrowing on the markets, confirmation of security for investors, it’s good news for workers and pensioners as well,” he added, noting that this Croatian credit rating assessment by analysts shows that this is a “government that has worked hard to ensure strong economic growth,” and that “they saw that we made concerted efforts to increase wages”.
“Croatian GDP should grow to over 84 billion euros,” he added, claiming that Croatia has enjoyed much faster growth than other countries in the EU. “Croatia’s growth should stand at 3.5 percent,” he proclaimed.
He also referred to the labour market. “Croatia currently has one million and 747 thousand insured persons, never have we had less unemployed people. Wages are going up. This is a confirmation of the good direction of the economic policy we’re leading.”
“Croatia is raising its standard thanks to all of my colleagues in the government and actors in the economy”, said Plenković. He also commented on what the news about the new Croatian credit rating means for the average Joe. “People can expect that their interest rates will be cheaper when borrowing, companies can also expect that.”
“Regarding income tax reforms, we said clearly in the programme that we’d work to reduce the tax burden on income, while emphasising the introduction of property tax. We believe that our reform, which was passed at the end of last year, recognised the economic trends in Croatia. With that reform, the surcharge was abolished,” Plenković concluded.
