Croatian commodity exporters in April were unable to repeat the record export value from March, which amounted to 2.14 billion euros, which somewhat slowed down (still high) export growth this year. According to the first results of the trade exchange of the Republic of Croatia with foreign countries published by the Croatian Bureau of Statistics, the value of Croatian exports in April was close to two billion euros, and in the first four months of this year, exports were 34.4 percent higher than in the same period last year.
At the same time, import growth has exploded: already in the first four months, the value of imports reached 12.4 billion euros, which is a full 44 percent increase compared to the same period last year. With such an increase in imports, the foreign trade deficit has also drastically increased, which has already reached 4.8 billion euros this year. The coverage of imports by exports, which exceeded the desired 70 percent last autumn, has again started to decline this year. While last year ended with a coverage of 67.4 percent, in the first four months of this year it has fallen to 61.8 percent.
According to currently available data on commodity exports in the first three months of this year, the growth in export value is primarily driven by rising energy and raw material prices on global exchanges. The largest increase (of 638 percent!) is recorded in the supply of electricity and gas, which, with exports worth 474 million euros by the end of the first quarter, was convincingly the leading export activity. The stock market rise in wheat prices and the craze of European furniture factories for wood raw materials have increased the value of exports in agriculture, forestry, and fishing by 39 percent.
