In July 2018 industrial production in Croatia went down 0.9 percent year-on-year, dropping for the seventh time over the past nine months. Compared to the month before, it dropped by 4.9 percent, the state statistics bureau said on Monday.

In June, industrial production was up 3.1 percent, after three consecutive months of decrease, and in July it decreased both month-on-month and year-on-year, analysts of the Raiffeisenbank Austria (RBA) said in their report.

Industrial production in the country was very unstable since the end of 2017, posting year-on-year decreases seven times in nine months, posting growth only in February and June.

Over the first seven months of 2018, industrial production went up 0.2 percent on the year. RBA analysts said they predict that this year’s industrial production growth would be somewhat lower than in 2017, when it inched up by 1.9 percent, meaning it will have slowed down for the second year in a row.

“To achieve stronger growth rates, it is necessary to bolster the competitiveness of the entire economy, so that the growth of domestic and foreign demand can, to a large extent, be met from domestic sources,” RBA analysts said.

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