Croatia's public debt at the end of March 2019 totalled HRK 287.8 billion, which is 3.2 billion or 1.1% more than at the end of 2018, with the debt-to-GDP ratio sliding to 74.4%, shows the latest analysis by Raiffeisenbank Austria (RBA).

Apart from being higher in relation to the previous quarter, public debt at the end of Q1 was higher in nominal terms also from the same period of last year. Compared to March 2018, public debt was 5.9 billion kuna or 2.1% higher.

The increase in public debt at the end of Q1 is mostly due to the realisation of government bond issues in February, RBA analysts said.

Despite the nominal increase in public debt, its share in GDP has been falling for quite some time because the economy has been growing faster than public debt.

In Q1, GDP grew by 3.9% on the year.

“… the general government debt is 0.2 percentage points lower than at the end of December 2018. The trends are a result of strong economic growth in Q1 and favourable trends in budget statistics, namely continuation of fiscal discipline,” said the analysts who expect that considering the expected continuation of economic growth, the share of public debt in GDP could continue falling.