"The central bank's hands are tied as it defends the currency's value," Rohatinski said in an interview he gave to the Reuters news agency on Tuesday on the fringes of the annual conference of the Bank for International Settlement in Basel.
The Croatian economy may presumably shrink by 4.5 percent in 2009 with exports likely to fall some 10 percent.
The governor said that Croatia had to keep its current account deficit below 6 percent and that the government needed to cut the consolidated general government deficit.
"Under these conditions I believe we will not need the IMF in 2009," he was quoted as saying.
According to the interview, Rohatinski said in April that the IMF was ready to help Zagreb should it become necessary. However, there have been no signs so far of the country's inability to refinance its debt in 2009.
Rohatinski added that it was within the government's remit to deal with a deficit that could reach 4 percent of GDP this year which he finds to be unacceptable.
"The country's high level of external debt, which stood at some 83 percent of GDP last year, and the big current account deficit of some 9 percent in 2008 made it vulnerable to external shocks, like the drop in export demand and foreign direct investment," Rohatinski said in the interview.
The national economy contracted by 6.7 percent on the year in the first quarter of 2009, and "the governor's forecast for the full year is even gloomier than the 3.5 percent decline the IMF forecast earlier in June", Reuters said.
Rohatinski said that the government could not count on the HNB's help and that "there will not be a new relaxation of monetary policy in 2009" as the central bank would defend the stability of the exchange rate of the national currency.