It is almost impossible to imagine that Lider’s export dashboard will ever look like it does this month! Pay attention to the column with percentages: Croatian commodity exports in April this year were 59.5 percent higher than in the same month last year; in the first five months of this year, as reported in the preliminary results by the State Bureau of Statistics, exports increased by 24.4 percent compared to the same period last year; imports also grew, albeit at slightly lower but still very high percentages.
Part of the explanation for such a high jump is that Croatian commodity exports in April and May last year, during the first lockdown across Europe, fell by 25 percent compared to April and May 2019. The second, more crucial part of the explanation lies in what we have been asserting in Lider for years – exports are conditio sine que non for the growth of the Croatian economy. This is now being proven. Namely, the growth percentages of exports are not only high compared to last year, but they are also double-digit compared to 2019. Thus, exports in the first five months of this year were about 13.5 percent higher than in the first five months of 2019. In short – Croatian exporters are simply thriving!
Data on foreign trade exchange for the first four months of this year shows that the largest contribution to export growth during this period comes from the most important Croatian export markets. Italy, where Croatian exporters lost the most business last year, has once again become our largest export market this year. In the first four months, goods worth 710 million euros were exported there, which is 34 percent more than in the same period last year. Export growth to Germany was 12 percent (694 million euros), and to Slovenia 15 percent (558 million euros). The significant growth of exports to Hungary last year, primarily due to the export of crude oil, continued this year and has already reached 465 million euros in the first four months (a growth of 53 percent). Overall, exports from Croatia to the European Union markets during this period amounted to 3.7 billion euros, which is 17 percent more than last year in the first four months.
