Grcic: Growth in industrial production good sign

Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Regional Development and European Union (EU) Funds Branko Grcic commented the growth in industrial production in March and underlined that unemployment had fallen below 300,000.

The State Bureau of Statistics reported on Wednesday that according to working day adjusted figures, industrial production jumped by 3.5% in March this year compared with March last year and that in the first quarter it had grown by 0.3% on the year. The growth in March accelerated in comparison to the month before, when production increased by 1.9% y-on-y, marking a strong improvement for the second consecutive month following a sharp drop of 5% in industrial production in January.

Commenting on the latest figures, Grcic underscored that industrial production had grown a high 3.5% in March, which marked a continuation of positive trends recorded in 2014 and that a growth of 0.3% could be expected in Q1 of this year.

"That will definitely be an additional contribution to positive outlooks with regard to economic growth," Grcic said.

Grcic underlined that unemployment had fallen below 300,000.

"Last year that didn't occur until July, at the height of the tourism season and this is a good sign that Croatia's economy is making significant steps forward. Today, compared with a year ago, we have 55,000 less people registered as unemployed," he stressed.

The number of unemployed fell for the first time in six months on the month and the fall in unemployment can be attributed to seasonal employment in tourism.

According to the Croatian Employment Service, there are currently 298,914 people unemployed in the country, which is 20,297 less than at the end of March. At the same time there are currently 13,585 vacancies advertised.

(Hina) 

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