The year-on-year decline of industrial production in Croatia continued in November and industrial production in that month was 8.6 percent down from the same month of 2008, according to figures released by the Central Bureau of Statistics (DZS) on Tuesday.
November was the 14th consecutive month to have seen a drop in year-on-yearindustrial output, and the rate of decrease was the same as in October.
DZS figures show that industrial production in the first 11 months of thisyear was 9.5 percent down from the same period of last year.
Compared to the average monthly production in 2008, industrial output inNovember this year was 8.8 percent lower.
In a survey conducted by Hina, six analysts had predicted that industrialproduction in November would fall between 6 and 8 percent.
"The fact that the fall in industrial production was bigger thanexpected shows that the growth of production in the energy sector did not makeup for the decline in the manufacturing industry, which suggests that domesticconsumption is low," said Zdeslav Santic, the chief economist of SplitskaBanka.
How industrial production would behave next year will largely depend on thefate of the shipbuilding industry, which has a significant share in industrialproduction, Santic said.
More favourable trends in the industrial sector can be expected only in thesecond half of next year, he said.
The head of Hypo Alpe Adria Bank's Economic Research Department, HrvojeStojic, said that economic recovery was unlikely if domestic consumption andforeign demand did not recover.
That domestic consumption and foreign demand are still not recovering isevidenced by DZS figures showing that in November production in themanufacturing industry was 10 percent down from the same month of last year, hesaid.
