ZAGREB, July 31, 2018 - Croatia's industrial production increased by 3.1 percent in June 2018 compared with June 2017, its first increase after three months of decline, according to figures released by the National Bureau of Statistics (DZS) on Tuesday. Compared with May 2018, industrial production jumped by 4.5 percent.
Industrial production has been very unstable since the end of 2017, recording year-on-year decreases in six out of the last eight months. During that time, it increased only in February, by 3.3 percent, and in June, by 3.1 percent.
"The latest DZS data on the volume of industrial production in June has exceeded our expectations and market expectations," Raiffeisenbank Austria (RBA) said in a comment on the DZS report.
Compared with June 2017, energy production increased the most, by 12.1 percent, followed by consumer non-durables production (+3.6%), intermediate goods production (+1.5%) and capital goods production (+0.7%). Consumer durables production fell by 7.9 percent.
In the first half of 2018, industrial production grew by 0.4 percent year-on-year, which RBA described as a modest annual growth rate. "However, the second quarter saw a slowdown in annual decline rates. Compared with the first quarter, industrial production grew by 4 percent," RBA said.
RBA expects that the industrial production growth rate for the whole of 2018 will be somewhat lower than last year when it grew by 1.9 percent, which means that the growth is slowing for the second year in a row.
"Stronger growth rates require stronger competitiveness of the entire economy so that growing domestic and foreign demand can be met for the most part from domestic sources," RBA said.
