Croatia's gross external debt continues downward trend

ZAGREB, March 5 (Xinhua) -- The gross external debt of Croatia at the end of November 2018 was 39.1 billion euro (44.3 billion U.S. dollars), which is 1.9 billion euro (2.15 billion U.S. dollars) or 4.5 percent less than the year before, Raiffeisenbank Austria (RBA) analytics said in a report published on Tuesday.

RBA analytics forecast a further reduction in the national external debt that is in decline since December 2015.

The biggest contribution to the year-on-year reduction was the debt reduction of other monetary financial institutions by 11.7 percent, the general government sector by 8.2 percent, and other domestic sectors by 5.1 percent.

RBA analytics assume that the next month's data will show a similar trend, so the share of the gross foreign debt in GDP is expected to be below 75 percent by the end of the year.

It is nearly 10 percentage points below its highest level recorded at the end of 2013 when it stood at 84 percent. They expect a further drop in the external debt-to-GDP ratio in 2019.