If the Croatian economy grew at an annual rate of 4.8 per cent, as it did in 2006, it would take Croatia 25 years to reach the EU development average, the Director of the HGK Centre for Macroeconomic Analysis, Jasna Belosevic-Matic, said.
If the annual economic growth rate were six per cent, Croatia would catch up with EU member states in about 15 years, while a growth rate of eight per cent would make that possible in ten years, she added.
Belosevic-Matic identified export growth as the main means of accelerating economic growth, saying that it would resolve the two biggest structural problems of the Croatian economy - the foreign trade deficit and the foreign debt.
Other participants agreed that without export growth, achievements based on the stability of the kuna exchange rate, credit expansion, the controlled and low inflation rate, industrial production growth and the progress in such economic sectors as trade, transport, tourism and construction might be called into question.