Croatia's general government surplus in 2017 was 3.15 billion kuna (€424.5 million), according to the revised figures released by the state statistics bureau on Monday.

This was the first ever recorded surplus since records began in 2002, showing that the public debt-to-GDP ratio dropped to 77.5 percent.

The report said that in 2017 the consolidated general government surplus totalled 3.15 billion kuna, or 0.9 percent of GDP, up from a 3.2 billion kuna (€431.2 million) deficit in 2016.

The new data revises upwards the previous report published in April, which had originally put the 2017 surplus at 2.7 billion kuna (€363.9 million).

The surplus was attributed to a variety of reasons, including the increased income from taxes related to manufacturing and imports, which totalled 71.4 billion kuna (€9.6 billion), or 5.2 percent up from the year before, as well as the reduction in interest payments, which amounted to 9.76 billion kuna (€1.3 billion) in 2017, or 9.7 percent down from the year before.

The statistics bureau also said that at the end of 2017 Croatia’s public debt was 283.3 billion kuna (€38.2 billion), meaning that the public debt-to-GDP ratio fell to 77.5 percent, the lowest ratio since 2012 when it stood at 69.4 percent.

Although in nominal terms the debt increased by 1.6 billion kuna (€215.6 million) or 0.6 percent from 2016, the country’s GDP grew at a faster rate, by 2.9 percent compared to 2016, which in turn caused the debt-to-GDP ratio to drop by 2.7 percentage points from 2016, when it was at 80.2 percent.

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