Croatia's October 2018 industrial production was 2.4 percent down year-on-year, which is now the fourth month in a row that industrial output posted a fall, though the fall was slightly lower than in September, the state statistics bureau said on Thursday.

However, the October drop was slightly smaller than in September, when the industrial output fell by 2.6 percent year-on-year, recording the biggest 12-month drop since January 2015. Month-on-month, October’s industrial production inched up 1.3 percent.

Since the end of 2017 Croatia’s industrial output has been very unstable, and in 10 of the last 12 months it posted year-on-year decline, recording positive figures in February and June only.

Over the first ten months of this year the total industrial output was 0.5 percent down from the same period last year, and if it continues to fall in the next two months by the end of 2018, this year will be the first on record since 2013 with a negative industrial output.

In 2017 industrial production output grew by 1.9 percent.

Raiffeisenbank Austria analysts said that the trend of falling industrial production is a result of Croatia’s low and stagnating competitiveness in the manufacturing sector.

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