The HNB's policy of depreciating the kuna has significantly reduced the competitiveness of Croatian exports, Vidosevic said, describing this as the most difficult blow to the government since the start of its term.
Twelve years of appreciation of the kuna has destroyed the structure of the economy, Vidosevic said.
He went on to say that export was the economy's top priority and that without strengthening exports Croatia would enter a serious social crisis.
Economic trends, particularly those in the real sector, slowed down in the first quarter in relation to the same period last year, and the economy has entered a period of stagnation and development crisis, the head of the HGK macroeconomic analysis sector, Jasna Belosevic Matic, said.
She warned that the year-long trend of exports growing faster than imports stopped after February. The value of exports in the first quarter increased by 7.7 percent in relation to the same period last year, while the value of imports rose by 10.7 percent, she said.
The kuna exchange rate is the lowest since the summer of 2002, which has been affecting the competitiveness of exporters, Belosevic Matic said.
GDP per capita amounts to 6,200 euros, which is 3.5 times lower than in EU countries, while export per capita is four times lower than in neighbouring Slovenia.
Belosevic Matic also said that no major development progress or growth of any component that had been generating GDP growth in the past several years (investment, personal consumption, export)
was expected, meaning that this year's economic growth would not exceed 3.5 percent.
Industrial production too has seen a slow down in growth, rising only by 0.2 percent in relation to the same period last year, she said.