The Croatian government stands by its growth projection despite the fact that the European Commission has revised its forecast downwards slightly, Finance Minister Zdravko Maric said on Friday.

The European Commission on Thursday released its summer interim forecast projecting Croatia’s growth for this year at 2.6 percent, down from the previous 2.8 percent. The country’s economy is expected to slow down to 2.5 percent growth in 2019.

“The Commission revised its growth projections for this year downwards slightly, to 2.6 percent, which is not a big difference from the forecasts by the government, leading Croatian analysts and the Croatian central bank. All our estimates are in the same range,” minister Maric told reporters in Brussels, where he attended a meeting of EU finance ministers.

He added that the figures from the first quarter of 2018 do possibly indicate a need for a downward revision, but that the government would stand by their projection regardless.

“The third and fourth quarters are ahead of us and they are very important, not only from the point of view of tourism, but other economic sectors as well. We will follow the situation and we will see, but for now we stand by our projections,” he said.

The Croatian government expects the national economy to grow at a rate of 2.9 percent this year.

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