Croatian banks posted a half-year profit more than 60% higher than in the same year-ago period, according to central bank data released on Tuesday.
The rise in profitability in the first six months coincides with Zagreb’s eurozone accession: Croatia joined the single currency area on 1 January after becoming an EU member in 2013.
The central bank said that “the operations of credit institutions generated €703.8 million in profit in the first half of 2023”, compared to €413 million in January-June of 2022.
Other profitability indicators were also strongly up.
The central bank said the return on assets almost doubled, from 1.0% in 2022 to 1.9%, while “return on equity rose from 8.2% to 16.8%”.
In a separate statement, the state statistics bureau (DZS) data showed that Croatia’s GDP had risen 2.7% in the second quarter, the tenth consecutive quarterly growth in the small Adriatic country’s economy.
It said growth was based on the stronger financial sector, as well as household consumption and services – while exports fell by 1.6% and imports rose by 3.6%.
(Zoran Radosavljević | EURACTIV.com)
Read more with EURACTIV
Bulgaria offers Slovenia new nuclear power plant projectBulgaria offered Slovenia to join the project for the new reactors at the Kozloduy Nuclear Power Plant as an energy buyer or as an investor, an offer that was already made to Greece earlier this year.
Source: euractiv.com
