Just two weeks after Standard & Poor's released a rating of “BB” for long-term foreign currency and “BBB-“ for local currency Fitch Ratings have announced their figures and values the Croatian economy exactly the same.
Fitch said the ratings showed Croatia's high public and external debt burdens, large fiscal deficits and a weak growth performance against fairly favourable structural features. Again one of the main problems for the Croatian economy was the extremely high government debt. The Croatian government gross debt rose to 89 percent of GDP in 2015, which is above the rating of “BB” which is set at 43.6 percent.
When addressing the fact that Croatia now has a new government, a coalition between the centre-right Croatian Democratic Union and Bridge, Fitch stated that, “The new administration aims to bring down public debt and implement reforms that would address many of the structural impediments to growth identified by the European Commission.”
They added a note of caution “However, there are doubts about the ability of the government to achieve these objectives and about the unity of the coalition as a whole. In addition, the new technocratic Prime Minister, Tihomir Oreskovic, has no experience in Croatian politics."