- Published: 29.10.2015.
Deputy PM Grcic: Industrial output growth yet another indicator that Croatia's economy is growing
Regional Development and EU Funds Minister Branko Grcic said on Thursday that the 5.4% industrial output growth recorded in September on the year was yet another indicator that Croatia's economy was growing and that this process was irreversible.
Grcic told the press after the government session on Thursday that last year's industrial output was up 1.3% and in only nine months of 2015 it grew by 2.3%, which means that Croatia's industry this year was growing at a faster pace. He underscored that in the third quarter alone, Croatia's industry grew by 4% which according to Grcic is an exceptionally high growth rate.
Given a significant share of the industry sector in Gross Domestic Product, which amounts to slightly below 20%, and the industry would contribute by 0.8 in GDP's growth in Q3, Grcic said. Retail sales figures will be released next week and this sector, along with industry, has the biggest share in GDP, Grcic added. "The two sectors account for more than 40% of GDP," he added.
Economy Minister Ivan Vrdoljak said the industry strategy, adopted last year, projected industrial output growth in 2014 at 1% and in 2015 at 2%. "Last year we exceeded that and this year we will also exceed the projections and our final objective is to have the country re-industrialised and create nearly 86,000 new jobs by 2020. When we adopted the strategy, everyone doubted it and in the first two years we performed even better than we had planned," Vrdoljak said, underscoring that one should not look down on those results.
Croatia's industrial output in September 2015 jumped by 2.8% from the same month of 2014, which is the highest increase since 2008. September was the eighth consecutive month in which industrial production went up. The national statistical office said on Thursday that according to seasonally-adjusted data industrial output in September soared 5.9% from August and that according to working day-adjusted data, it was 5.4% higher than in September 2014.
September was the eighth consecutive month to see an increase in industrial output and its growth was much faster than in August , when it went up 2.8% on the year. The September increase in industrial production was also higher than expected by four macroeconomic analysts polled by Hina who had anticipated a growth of 1.1% on average on the year, with their forecasts ranging from stagnation to 2%.
(Text: Hina)