ZAGREB, October 30, 2018 - Croatia's industrial production in September 2018 fell by 2.6% from September 2017, its sharpest year-on-year decline since January 2015, according to figures released by the National Bureau of Statistics (DZS) on Tuesday.
Industrial production in September slid by 1.5% from the previous month and by 2.6 from the same month last year. It was the biggest decline since January 2015, when industrial output plunged by 4.3%. This August, it decreased by 1.1% year on year.
With the rates of decline on both the monthly and the annual level, the volume of industrial production continued to fall for the third month in a row, Raiffeisenbank Austria (RBA) said in its analysis of the DZS report.
Production has been very unstable since the end of last year, recording year-on-year decreases in nine of the last 11 months. During that time, it rose only in February and June.
In September 2018, the production of consumer durables sank the most, by 10.4%, followed by the production of capital goods, which fell by 9.5%. The production of consumer non-durables decreased by 1.9% and that of energy by 0.7%. Only the production of intermediate goods saw a year-on-year increase, of 2.1%.
The manufacturing industry, which accounts for about 80% of the total output, continued to record negative rates for the third consecutive month, falling by 1.5% in September.
In the first nine months of this year, production was 0.3% lower than in the same period last year.
RBA estimates that the growth of industrial production for 2018 will be somewhat lower than last year, when it grew by 1.9%. This means that the growth will have been slowing for the second year running. "To achieve stronger growth rates, it is necessary to strengthen the competitiveness of the entire economy, so that the growth of domestic and foreign demand can for the most part be met from domestic sources," RBA said.
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