Two Opposition politicians -- Dragutin Lesar of the Labour Party and Kresimir Bubalo of the Croatian Democratic Party of Slavonia and Baranja (HDSSB) -- believe that Croatia's GDP contraction in Q2 2013 could be ascribed to problems surrounding investments and to fiscal repression instead of measures to encourage an economic boom.
The National Bureau of Statistics released an initial estimate on Friday according to which Gross Domestic Product in the second quarter of 2013 dropped 0.7% in relation to the corresponding period last year, the seventh consecutive quarter of economic decline. By comparison, in the first quarter of the year GDP slid 1.5%.
The Labour Party leader said that the a lower decline in the country's GDP than expected was impacted by the tourist season and consumption in the tourist trade.
He told the media that the continued fall of GDP was a consequence of preparations of a large share of the manufacturing industry for doing business in the European Union upon Croatia's admission to the bloc and the transfer of a part of the production capacities to member-states of the Central European Free Trade Agreement (CEFTA).
Lesar warns that foreign investments mainly went into the financial sector, telecommunications and real estate sectors, which was why they produced no effect on GDP.
"Industrial recovery is still absent," he warned.
The HDSSB deems that the decline in GDP is evidence of the continuation of the failed policy of the current government.
Bubalo told the press that the GDP contraction mirrored the government's bad policy with fiscal repression and no idea of how to ensure an economic boom.
The chairman of the Croatian Economists' Association, Ljubo Jurcic, also believes that negative growth is a result of the fact that the current government does not pursue a pro-active economic policy towards recovery.
