"In the third quarter of 2023, the current and capital account balance amounted to EUR 5.78 bn, which is a noticeable increase from EUR 4.37 bn recorded in the same quarter of the preceding year," the central bank says on its web site.
Revenues from travel industry up 7.7%
The excellent results are ascribed primarily to "revenues from travel of EUR 9.12bn, (which, in the third quarter of 2022, totalled EUR 8.47bn), that mainly affected an increase of EUR 0.57bn in the positive balance on the services sub-account."
In the first nine months of 2023, the revenues from foreign visitors to Croatia totalled €12.97 billion, or 1.33 billion (+11.4%) more than in the January-September period of 2022.
"The negative balance on the goods sub-account improved by EUR 0.63bn from the same quarter in 2022, although the values of both exports and imports of goods declined (having gone down by 19.8% and 16.6%, respectively)."
The balances in the primary and secondary income accounts saw no significant changes, while the positive balance in capital transactions improved by EUR 0.17bn from the same quarter of the previous year mainly owing to increased payments from EU funds to end beneficiaries.