December 5 (SeeNews) - Croatia's Privredna Banka Zagreb said on Monday it has revised its forecast for Croatia's 2016 economic growth to 2.7% from an earlier projected 2.3%.
The hike was influenced by a stats office release which showed that Croatia's GDP expanded by 2.9% on the year in the third quarter, driven by an increase in proceeds from tourism.
"This is in line with our expectations for growth of some 3% in Q3 and is a continuation of positive trends from the previous two quarters when the growth rate was 2.7% and 2.8%, respectively," PBZ said in a press release.
In the third quarter, on a seasonally adjusted basis, Croatia's economy expanded by 2.7% year-on-year and by 1.7% quarter-on-quarter, following a 2.0% annual growth and a 0.7% quarterly rise in the second quarter of 2016, data from the statistics office showed last week.
According to PBZ, the quarterly seasonally-adjusted growth is the highest since the first quarter of 2008.
Personal consumption rose 3.4% on the year in the third quarter, hitting a record high since the first quarter of 2008, while general government spending increased 2.1% in real terms, slowing slightly from a 2.5% growth in the second quarter.
Gross fixed capital formation rose 2.9% in the three months through September, down from a 6.5% jump the previous quarter, PBZ noted.
Exports of goods and services, however, added 6.3% on the year, up from 4.0% in the second quarter. The growth in exports of services surged to 7.4% on the year in the three months through September, from 1.6% in the second quarter.
The contribution of domestic demand to GDP growth was positive, PBZ also added.
In 2015, Croatia's GDP increased by a real 1.6%, reversing a contraction of 0.4% in 2014.