Croatia's public debt totaled 327.8 billion kuna (€43.3 billion) in November 2020, or up by 12.1 percent since December 2019, data released by the central bank showed. Over the same period, the country's public debt-to-GDP ratio increased by 15.3 percentage points to 88.6 percent.

Month-on-month, the public debt increased slightly by 0.6 percent in November 2020.

Analysts of the local Raiffeisenbank Austria (RBA) commented on the numbers and attributed the strong increase in public debt over the first eleven months of 2020 to the global Covid-19 pandemic, which ground parts of the economy to a halt which in turn slashed government’s budget revenues, forcing the government to fix budget gaps.

The debt-to-GDP ratio is expected to drop below 85 percent in 2021, provided that the projections of economic recovery come true this year.

Croatia’s GDP shrank 8.4 percent in 2020, with government estimates projecting 5 percent growth in 2021.

(€1= 7.57 kuna)