In March, industrial production in Croatia fell for the fifth month in a row at the annual level, by 0.7 percent, which indicates a slowdown in economic growth.

The State Bureau of Statistics (DZS) announced on Friday that industrial production in March increased by 1.2 percent compared to the previous month, while compared to March last year it fell by 0.7 percent.

It's the fifth straight month that output has fallen on an annual basis, but more slowly than in February, when it slipped 1.7 percent.

The decline in production in March at the annual level was recorded in three out of five sectors, and the highest, by 7.5 percent, in the production of intermediate products.

With a decline of 6.2 percent, the production of consumer durables follows, while energy production slipped 0.8 percent.

On the other hand, the production of capital goods increased by 5.8 percent, while the production of non-durable consumer goods increased by 4.3 percent.

In the first three months of this year, industrial production fell by 1.7 percent compared to the same period last year.

The fall in industrial production for five months in a row, as well as the data published this morning on the decline in retail consumption in March, indicate a further slowdown in economic growth in the first quarter of this year.

In the last quarter of last year, the gross domestic product (GDP) grew by 4 percent on an annual basis. It was already the seventh quarter in a row that the economy has recovered from the corona crisis, but slower than in the previous quarter, when GDP grew by 5.2 percent.