ZAGREB, September 7, 2018 - Croatia's exports reached 60.7 billion kuna in the first seven months of 2018, up 3.2% over the same period in 2017, while imports increased by 6.2% to 101.6 billion kuna, the National Bureau of Statistics (DZS) said on Friday.
The trade deficit was 40.87 billion kuna, or 4.04 billion higher than last year. Coverage of imports by exports decreased from 61.5% to 59.8%.
Exports to EU member states increased by 8.6% to 41.5 billion kuna, while imports from those countries rose by 6.9% to 79.8 billion kuna. On the other hand, exports to non-EU countries fell by 6.8% to 19.2 billion kuna, while imports from them went up by 3.8% to 21.8 billion kuna.
Viewed in euro, Croatian exports reached 8.17 billion euro in the January-July period of 2018, an increase of 3.6% over the same period in 2017, while imports rose by 6.6% to 13.68 billion euro. The trade deficit was 5.5 billion euro, compared to 4.9 billion euro last year.
Exports to EU member states increased by 9.0% to 5.6 billion euro, while imports increased by 7.2% to 10.7 billion euro. Exports to non-EU countries dropped by 6.5% to 2.6 billion euro and, while imports went up by 4.1% to 2.9 billion euro.
The DZS revised upward its initial data on trade in the first six months. According to the latest data, exports increased by 2.5% to 51.5 billion kuna and imports by 6.0% to 86.3 billion kuna. The initial data showed that exports reached 51.3 billion kuna in the January-June period of 2018, an increase of 2.0% over the same period in 2017, while imports totalled 85.9 billion kuna, up 5.5%. The trade deficit was 34.7 billion kuna, and coverage of imports by exports was 59.8%.
In euros, exports in the first six months of this year rose by 2.9% to 6.9 billion euro, while imports went up by 6.4% to 11.6 billion euro, with a trade deficit of 4.67 billion euro.
The manufacturing industry had the largest share in total exports, of 90.7%, seeing a 4.9% rise to 6.3 billion euro in the first half of 2018.
Italy and Germany continue to be Croatia's main trading partners. In the first six months of 2018, Croatia exported slightly over one billion euro worth of commodities to Italy, or 7.8% more than at the same time in 2017, while its exports to Germany rose by 15.6% to 943.7 million euro.
