The slow GDP growth rate is the result of the same issues which are difficult to solve in the long term, such as various deficits and the resulting high and growing public and foreign debts and the high unemployment rate, said Jasna Belosevic-Matic, director of HGK's Macroeconomic Analysis Sector.
She urged setting long term economic policy goals and said Croatia must not enter the European Union unable to be competitive. She added HGK supported the Pre-accession Economic Programme for the period 2006-08.
Under the programme, the Croatian government is expected to draw up a national development programme by mid-2006 in order to define the priority branches of the economy, the way in which government public policies will support the growth and development of the private sector, and the terms of restructuring and rehabilitation of major industrial systems, among other things.