This year Croatia's economy is forecast to grow 1.9 percent, whereas last October the IMF forecast a growth of 1%. The IMF has also doubled the forecast of Croatia's growth for 2015 to 1.6% from the previously forecast 0.8%. As for 2017, the IMF projects that Croatia's economy will growth 2.1%.
The projections of the balance of payments surplus have been revised upwards from last autumn's 1.5% to 2.7%. The forecast of last year's surplus has been increased from 1.7% to 4.4%. In 2017, the IMF projects that the balance of payments surplus will slide to 2.1%.
The inflation forecast for this year has been revised downwards from 1.1% last autumn to 0.4%. The IMF estimates that last year prices decreased 0.5%, up from a 0.4% decrease forecast last autumn. In 2017, inflation is projected at 1.3%.
The IMF has also revised upwards its projection of this year's unemployment rate by 0.3 percentage points to 16.4%. It also raised by 0.3 pp its forecast of last year's unemployment rate to 16.9%. For 2017, the IMF forecasts the unemployment rate at 15.9%.
The IMF includes Croatia in emerging European economies. Their growth forecast for this year has been raised by 0.4 pp to 3.5%, the same as for 2015, while the growth projection for 2017 is 3.3%, down 0.1 pp from the previous forecast.
The IMF forecasts global growth at 3.2% in 2016 and 3.5% in 2017, a downward revision of 0.2% and 0.1%, respectively.