ZAGREB, Aug 6 (Hina) - Thanks to its fiscal consolidation of several years and the advancement of structural reforms, Croatia has achieved significant headway in strengthening its economic growth and reaching a stability of prices,
simultaneously continuing the increase of foreign exchange reserves.
ZAGREB, Aug 6 (Hina) - Thanks to its fiscal consolidation of several
years and the advancement of structural reforms, Croatia has
achieved significant headway in strengthening its economic growth
and reaching a stability of prices, simultaneously continuing the
increase of foreign exchange reserves. #L#
This is an assessment made by the Executive Board of the
International Monetary Fund (IMF) after its first review of
Croatia's 14-month stand-by arrangement with Croatia, worth around
US$147 million.
While the report estimates the country's public debt - GDP ratio as
acceptable, it warns about an excessively rapid expansion of
private sector credit, which has fuelled import growth and pushed
up the external debt ratio.
"An early reduction of the external imbalance has thus become an
urgent policy priority for the Croatian authorities", says the
report and recommends that the government meet its borrowing
requirements in the domestic capital market whenever possible,
which should contribute to the development of Croatia's capital
market.
"The pace of reforms has accelerated considerably with the recent
parliamentary approval of new bankruptcy, budget, company,
competition, foreign exchange, and labour laws. The government
should now focus on public enterprise restructuring and
privatisation as well as remaining measures to promote Croatia's EU
membership bid," the report says.
(hina) lml sb