In the third quarter of 2018 Croatia's GDP grew by 2.8 percent year-on-year, the state statistics bureau said in its estimate released on Wednesday. Although this indicates a slight slowdown of the country's economy, the rate is still higher than what analysts expected.

This is the 17th quarter in a row that the national GDP has posted positive growth rates, albeit somewhat lower from Q2 2018, when it grew by 2.9 percent year-on-year.

The estimate still exceeds the forecast given by eight macroeconomic analysts previously polled by the state news agency Hina who had predicted on average a 2.3 percent growth in Q3 2018.

“The expectations were that the growth would not be as high as in the previous period, but the good tourist season, probably also owing to the football World Cup (in Russia this summer), helped spur growth,” head of the state statisctics bureau, Marko Kristof said at a press conference.

The largest single contributing factor to GDP in this period was made by an increase in exports of goods and services, which rose by 3.7 percent compared to Q3 2017. Exports of goods jumped by 5.2 percent, and exports of services by 2.5 percent.

Meanwhile, imports of goods and services was up by 5.1 percent, with imports of goods rising 4.8 percent up, and the imports of services by 6.4 percent. Household spending grew 2.7 percent year-on-year, easing down from 3.6 percent growth in Q2 2018.

On the other hand, the growth of government spending accelerated, from 2.5 percent year-on-year in the previous quarter, to 3.9 percent in Q3 2018. The seasonally adjusted data showed that in Q3 2018 GDP inched up by 0.6 percent quarter-on-quarter.

According to seasonally adjusted data, Croatia’s economy posted growth higher than the European Union average, for the third quarter in a row. Croatia had a higher GDP year-on-year quarterly growth in all but one of the last 13 quarters, Kristof added. The average GDP quarterly growth is 1.9 percent.

Commenting on the report, Finance Minister Zdravko Maric on Wednesday said that the 2.8 percent GDP growth also exceeded projections made by his ministry.

“The Finance Ministry usually does not release GDP forecasts, but we do have our own projections, and the figures published by the state statistics bureau for the third quarter of the year are a little above our expectations too,” Maric told state news agency Hina.

Referring to the structure of GDP results, Maric added that personal spending, despite contributing positively to economic growth, still performed slightly below the ministry’s expectations.

Although he added that the latest GDP data was overall positive, Maric also warned that it indicated that some challenges were still present, mainly in terms of domestic investments, which were expected to be higher in the period. In addition, Maric said that the fall in industrial production in Q3 2018 “pleases no one.”

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