Croatia

The lands that today comprise Croatia were part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire until the close of World War I. In 1918, the Croats, Serbs, and Slovenes formed a kingdom known after 1929 as Yugoslavia. Following World War II, Yugoslavia became a federal independent Communist state under the strong hand of Marshal TITO. Although Croatia declared its independence from Yugoslavia in 1991, it took four years of sporadic, but often bitter, fighting before occupying Serb armies were mostly cleared from Croatian lands. Under UN supervision, the last Serb-held enclave in eastern Slavonia was returned to Croatia in 1998. In April 2009, Croatia joined NATO; it is a candidate for eventual EU accession.

Economical characteristics

• Currency: Kuna (ISO code: HRK)
• Central bank discount rate: 9% (31 December 2009)
• Commercial banks lending rate: 9.85% (30 November 2009)
• Stock of money (M1): $9.27 billion (31 December 2009)
• Quasi money (with M1 makes M2): $34.57 billion (31 December 2009)

Statistics

Statistic / Year	1999	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008
GDP (million USD)	23 066	21 348	22 880	26 479	33 875	40 713	44 432	49 038	58 558	69 332
Govt. debt (% of GDP)
Govt. revenue (% of GDP)	37.257	35.982	34.321	36.050	35.582	35.434	35.033	34.993	35.931
Govt. expenses (% of GDP)	38.946	39.461	37.632	36.234	35.556	35.407	34.926	34.487	34.713
Debt to revenue (years)

References

Note: statistical data was rounded. Different sources may use different methodologies for their estimates. Debt to revenue is calculated by dividing the two variables from their original ('unrounded') values. It represents how long it would a government take to repay its entire debt if it used its whole revenue for this purpose.

External links

• Croatia on Wikipedia
• Central bank of Croatia
• Country profile (pdf) from the Enterprise Studies page (part of the The World Bank Group)
• BBC country profile
• Involuntary Unemployment: The Case of Serbia and Croatia by Predrag Rajsic, May 2010