Croatia's capital account surplus in 2017 was €237 million, putting the total current and capital account balance of payments at more than €2.14 billion, according to a report released by the central bank (HNB) on Friday.

In 2017 the country recorded a current account balance of payments surplus of €1.9 billion, or €695 million more than in 2016, largely due to positive results in services, and especially tourism, which last year had a record high revenue of €9.5 billion, preliminary data show.

“In spite of worsened balance in the current and capital accounts of the balance of payments in the last three months of 2017, the surplus in both accounts for the entire year increased, and was 4.4 percent of GDP, or 0.5 percent up from 2016. The main factors contributing to the surplus were the continuing growth of net exports, services and the reduced deficit in the primary income balance (because of lower profits of banks due to loan loss reserves related to Agrokor),” HNB analysts said in their commentary.

This was mainly due to record high tourist revenue, i.e. increased spending of tourists visiting the country. Tourism revenue totalled €9.49 billion in 2017, which is €858 million or 9.9 percent up from 2016.