Croatia's economy grew at the slowest pace in just over five years in the first quarter amid a slump in exports and imports, preliminary data from the Croatian Bureau of Statistics showed on Thursday.
Gross domestic product rose an unadjusted 2.2% year-on-year following a 3.9% increase in the previous quarter. The outcome was the weakest since the fourth quarter of the Covid-19 year of 2020, when the economy shrunk, as well as the slowest pace of expansion since the final three months of 2019.
Consumption growth slowed to 1.9% from 2.8% and the rate of increase in gross fixed capital formation eased sharply to 2.5% from 7.0% in the previous quarter.
Total exports decreased 1.6%, entirely erasing a broadly similar gain in the previous quarter. Imports shrank 0.3%.
Gross value added grew 2.1% year-on-year after a 2.8% increase in the previous quarter.
On a seasonally adjusted basis, the Croatian economy grew 2.4% year-on-year after a 3.5% gain in the previous quarter.
The seasonally adjusted quarterly growth was nil versus 1.2% in the previous three months.
