Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic said that economic and fiscal guidelines, which the government is expected to adopt at its session on Thursday, will form a roadmap for the preparation of the 2019 budget, adding that they project a 2.7 percent GDP growth in 2019, slowing down to 2.5 percent in 2020.

In his opening remarks at the government session on Thursday, Plenkovic said that the law on budgetary planning requires economic and fiscal guidelines for the next three-year period to be adopted at the end of July or in early August. He added that these would serve as a roadmap for the drawing up of next year’s budget.

“This is the continuation of positive economic trends in the medium term. We are continuing the process of fiscal consolidation, amid sound economic growth, and the reduction in public debt,” Plenkovic said.

Plenkovic said that following this year’s projected GDP growth of 2.8 percent, the government expects growth to slow down to 2.7 percent in 2019 and again to 2.5 percent in 2020.

“We want the budget, which will be adopted by the end of the year, to give impetus towards solving the issue of demographic revival, encourage demographic revitalisation, and enable the continuation of the education reform. The education reform is a prerequisite for all forms of progress and competitiveness of Croatian workers on the labour market,” Plenkovic said.

He said the most important thing regarding fiscal and macroeconomic trends was to maintain sustainable growth and continue cutting the public debt, which indicate that Croatia could be close to meeting the Maastricht criteria – required to adopt the euro – by 2021.

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