July 27 (SeeNews) - Croatia's government said on Thursday it expects economic growth of 2.8% and central government budget deficit equivalent to 0.8% of GDP next year.
Budget revenue is expected to come in at 127.9 billion kuna ($20.2 billion/17.3 billion euro) in 2018, while expenditures are projected at 132.9 billion kuna, the government said in a set of guidelines for economic and fiscal policies in 2018-2020 it endorsed at its weekly session aired by national broadcaster HRT.
The projected budget revenues in 2018 are 5.3% higher than the revenues planned for 2017. Revenues are projected to grow by 3.6% to 132.6 billion kuna in 2019, and to 136.7 billion kuna a year later.
Croatia's budget gap is planned to narrow to 0.3% of GDP in 2019, while a surplus of some 0.5% of GDP is expected in 2020.
Public debt is projected to decrease to 81.1% of GDP at the end of 2017, down 2.6 percentage points year-on-year, before falling to 72.1% in 2020.
The government projects GDP growth of 3.2% and a budget gap equivalent to 1.3% of GDP in 2017.
(1 euro=7.40867 kuna)