ZAGREB, Feb 7 (Hina) - Croatia's credit rating for February remains unchanged from January -- DB4d -- marking the country as one of moderate risk for investments, according to Dun & Bradstreet, the world's leading credit rating
agency.
ZAGREB, Feb 7 (Hina) - Croatia's credit rating for February remains
unchanged from January -- DB4d -- marking the country as one of
moderate risk for investments, according to Dun & Bradstreet, the
world's leading credit rating agency. #L#
Croatia's risk outlook has been characterised by the release of
official preliminary data on an increase in Gross Domestic Product
in the last quarter of 2002 which was up 6.5 percent from the same
time the year before. This resulted in D&B raising its GDP growth
estimate for Croatia in 2002 from 3.8 to 4.8 percent, read a report
released on Friday by BonLine, a Zagreb-based company for economic
information.
Besides the GDP growth, other significant events in the economy
last month included a stronger loan activity -- which on the annual
level last November went up 40.3 percent for households and 21.4
percent for companies. The sources of these loans, however, worried
the central bank as they are funded by foreign credits. D&B,
therefore, commended the steps the Croatian National Bank took to
curb the excessive increase in loan provisioning.
The agency said developments in connection with Gen. Janko Bobetko,
an indictee of the U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague, also
affected Croatia's risk outlook.
The DB4d risk factor which Croatia has been receiving for several
months is used to indicate moderate risk countries -- those in which
the risk for the return of invested money is considerable.
Among central and eastern Europe's countries with the best credit
rating, according to D&B, are Hungary and Slovenia with DB2d as low
risk countries, followed by the Czech Republic, Estonia and Poland
with DB3d -- mild risk.
Yugoslavia is still at the bottom of the list with the risk factor
DB6d -- high risk -- alongside Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan,
Tajikistan, Georgia, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and
Albania.
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