H1 FDI in Croatia Falls 22.4% Y/Y to Prelim 1.83 Bln Euro - RBA

The fall is mainly due to a smaller amount of foreign direct investments in the first quarter of 2008 compared to the same period of last year, RBA said in a note, quoting central bank figures.

Foreign direct investments for the second quarter of the year amounted to almost 935 million euro, down 5.6% year on year.

According to RBA, the biggest part of the FDI in the January-June period, or around 652 million euro, went to Croatia's financial intermediation sector, followed by investments in trade, 94.6 million euro, and in extraction of crude oil and natural gas, 94.3 million euro.

Austria was the largest single foreign investor in Croatia in the first half of the year with 948 million euro in FDI. It has invested a total of almost 6.0 billion euro in Croatia in the last ten and a half years, RBA added.

Croatia expects to attract around 2.7 billion euro in FDI this year, down from 3.6 billion euro in 2007 but unchanged from 2006.

The global financial crisis will have a negative impact on foreign direct investments in the countries of "New Europe", including Croatia, RBA said.

($=0.7327 euro)