Croatia's industrial production fell by 1.3 percent in April 2018 year-on-year, and by 0.9 percent compared to March, according to figures released by the state statistics bureau on Tuesday.

Since the end of last year, industrial production output recorded drops in five out of the last six months. Over that period, production rose only in February, by 3.3 percent year-on-year.

“The unfavourable trends in industrial production began in the last quarter of 2017. The indicator of business optimism in industry, which has been falling since March, also indicated a slowdown. Furthermore, the decline in demand for Croatian-made products is also driven by the slowing down of economic activity in Croatia’s export markets,” analysts at Raiffeisenbank Austria (RBA) said in their comments.

By type of goods, the production of capital goods fell the most, by 12.2 percent, in April 2018 compared to the same month the year before, while the production of durable consumer goods dropped 4.4 percent, and of energy by 0.3 percent. On the other hand, the production of non-durable consumer goods and of intermediate goods increased by 3.8 percent and 1.3 percent respectively.

In the first four months of 2018, industrial production dropped by 0.1 percent compared to the same period last year. “This clearly shows that the economy, despite the solid growth in personal consumption, has slowed down slightly,” RBA said.

Last year, industrial production rose by 1.9 percent year-on-year.

“The growth of industrial production in 2018 will be slightly lower on average than last year’s, reflecting the slowing down of economic activity both in Croatia and in the European Union,” RBA analysts said.

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