October 19 (SeeNews) - Croatia's central bank, HNB, has revised up its forecast for the country's economic growth this year to 3.3% from 3.0% on the back of stronger personal consumption and better tourism results, bank data showed on Thursday.
Croatia's strong rate of growth is, however, insufficient to reach countries in Central and Eastern Europe, a bank issued slideshow published by news portal Tportal shows.
The central bank expects inflation to accelerate to 1.1% in 2017 and further to 1.5% in 2018.
Croatia's unemployment rate is projected to end 2017 at just above 10%, before falling slightly below that rate in 2018. It is, however, still a long way above that in Bulgaria, Romania, and other newworld EU member states, the bank noted.
Also on Thursday, the World Bank affirmed its forecast for Croatia's GDP growth at 2.9% this year, adding that growth is threatened by high levels of private sector indebtedness, an ongoing pre-bankruptcy proceeding of the largest firm Agrokor, and the possibility of a further rise in the risk premium for emerging markets.