Croatia's commodity exports reached €5.8 billion in the first three months of 2023, rising 13.7% compared to the corresponding period of 2022, while imports increased 6.1% to €9.8 billion, the state statistics bureau (DZS) said on Tuesday.

The foreign trade deficit was €3.96 billion in Q1, falling by €138.7 million from the same period of 2022.

The coverage of imports by exports was 59.5%, rising from 55.5% in Q1 2022, according to the first estimate of the DZS.

Exports to EU member states increased by 12.3% to €4 billion, while imports from those countries grew 8% to €7.5 billion.

Exports to non-EU countries totalled  €1.8 billion, up by 16.8%, while imports from them went up by 0.3% to € 2.3 billion.

The revised data for the first two months of 2023 show that Croatia’s exports rose 9.2% to 3.4 billion euros, and imports increased 12.4% to €6.1 billion, in comparison to the first two month of 2022.