Croatia's March 2021 retail sales jumped 14.3 percent year-on-year, increasing second month in a row and posting the largest monthly year-on-year jump on record, the state bureau of statistics said on Friday, with analysts expecting the recovery of the retail market from the the effects of the pandemic to continue in the coming months.

The national statistics bureau said on Friday that although real term retail sales in March had dropped 2.4 percent compared to February, when compared to March 2020 they had jumped by 14.3 percent. It was the second month in a row that retail trade posted a year-on-year increase, after falling for 11 months straight due to the coronavirus crisis. This was the largest single increase since 2006 when state statistics bureau began tracking this data

State news agency Hina cited analysts of Raiffeisenbank Austria (RBA) saying that the recovery is expected to continue throughout the rest of 2021.