October 12 (SeeNews) - The International Monetary Fund (IMF) said on Tuesday it expects Croatia's economy to expand by 6.3% this year, revising upwards its previous forecast for 5.4% growth made last month.
In the October 2021 edition of its World Economic Outlook, the global lender maintained its projection for the country's GDP growth next year at 5.8%.
The IMF's projection for Croatia's 2021 GDP growth is lower than the forecast for an 8.5% economic expansion in 2021 made by Croatia's central bank last month.
Croatia's economy contracted by 8.4% last year due to COVID19 pandemic and the country has also suffered from two heavy earthquakes.
In the October forecast, IMF expects Croatia's unemployment rate to fell from 9.0% last year to to 8.4% this year and 8.0% in 2022.
It sees the country's average annual inflation at 2.0% in each of 2021 and 2022, compared to 0.1% last year.
The country's current account gap, measured as a percentage of the GDP, is to be 0.1% this year and 0.8% next year, compared to 0.4% last year.