Croatia will follow a budget surplus in 2017 with structural reforms and fiscal discipline to boost its growth rate, credit rating, and prospects for joining the euro zone, Croatian Finance Minister Zdravko Maric said in an interview with Reuters on Wednesday.

“Fiscal data for 2017 will be released on Friday, and we can expect a general budget surplus for the first time since we have applied EU methodology. That is the result of our efforts to keep a lid on expenditure and use stronger revenues to cut public debt and the tax burden,” Maric told Reuters.

Croatia’s public debt at the end of 2017 is at 78 percent of GDP. In the last two years it has been reduced by 5.8 percent. The general budget gap in 2016 was at a record-low of 0.9 percent of GDP.

“Our goal is to push the public debt down further by 2.5-3.0 percentage points this year and keep that effort on track in the coming years,” Maric said.

He said the budgetary performance in the first quarter of 2018 is in line with those plans. Croatia is targeting a general budget gap of 0.5 percent of GDP for this year, on economic growth of around 3 percent.

Analysts and the European Commission have warned that structural reforms have been slow, despite being crucial for boosting growth and credit rating.

They point at problems such as the subdued investment climate, an inefficient and costly public administration, and a slow-moving judiciary.

“There is no doubt we must tackle the structural problems like we recently did with the road sector. Next week the government will adopt a detailed annual plan of reforms, and the focus will initially be on improving the investment climate and efficiency of the health sector and public administration,” Maric told Reuters.

He said that structural reforms should help shield Croatia from any rise in interest rates that might happen on the international markets.

“I believe that if we display determination in the further implementation of reforms and preserve fiscal discipline, which I’m confident will happen, we could achieve an investment grade sooner than anticipated,” Maric said in the interview, adding that these plans were part of the ambition to prepare the economy for taking on the euro currency.