The total financial assets of Croatian households reached 586 billion kuna at the end of the fourth quarter of 2021, increasing by 2.3% from the previous quarter and by 49.1 billion kuna from 2020, the Croatian Central Bank (HNB) reported on Monday.

The financial liabilities of households remained virtually unchanged at 156 billion kuna, increasing by 0.2% from the third quarter of 2021.

The financial net worth of the household sector amounted to 430 billion kuna, up by 3.1% from Q3 2021, continuing the trend of a gradual increase in the financial net worth of this sector.

At the end of the fourth quarter of 2021, the financial assets of the Croatian economy stood at 2,742 billion kuna, or 39.0 billion kuna more than in the previous quarter and 214 billion kuna more than in 2020. At the same time, the financial liabilities of the Croatian economy reached 2,887 billion kuna, up by 35.3 billion kuna from the third quarter and by 180.4 billion kuna from the previous year.

At the end of Q4 2021, the financial assets of the Croatian economy amounted to 637% of the annual GDP, decreasing by 10.6 percentage points from Q3 2021 and by 31.4 percentage points from 2020. The financial liabilities of the Croatian economy decreased by 12.6 percentage points from Q3 2021 and by 45 percentage points from 2020, accounting for 670% of the annual GDP at the end of the fourth quarter of 2021.

These trends resulted in a decrease in both assets and liabilities of the Croatian economy in terms of GDP, which began in the second quarter of 2021 due to a slower increase in their value compared to the quarterly GDP growth.

The total financial assets of non-financial corporations reached 772 billion kuna at the end of the fourth quarter of 2021, increasing by 0.9% from the previous quarter. The financial liabilities of non-financial corporations totalled 1,166 billion kuna, up by 0.8% from Q3 2021.

These developments resulted in the financial net worth of the non-financial corporations sector decreasing to –394 billion kuna, down by 0.7% from Q3 2021.

(€1 = 7.5 kuna)