Consumer climate in Croatia is deteriorating with a majority of households not expecting the improvement of their life conditions in the next year, the GfK Croatia market research agency said presenting findings of a survey from October.
Only nine percent of households reported a somewhat better financial situation this October than a year ago, according to the opinion poll conducted on a representative sample.
As many as 54 percent of households remained in the same situation, while 37 percent of households polled said that their current financial situation had deteriorated in comparison to a year before.
The deteriorating financial situation was most conspicuous in the central region of Lika, the eastern region of Slavonia and in the north of the country.
As many as 49 percent of households polled said they could barely make ends meet, with 63 percent of such households in Slavonia and 58 percent in northern Croatia while this percentage was lowest in Zagreb (36 percent).
According to the survey, 29 percent of those polled said they could make some savings, of whom only one percent said those savings were substantial.
Some 16 percent of households hope that the financial situation will improve a little in the next year, with 54 percent assessing that their situation will remain the same.
As many as 27 percent believe that their situation will deteriorate over the next year.
