Within the scope of financial accounts statistics^[1], the Croatian National Bank publicly releases data on stocks of financial assets and liabilities of the entire economy and individual institutional sectors – non-financial corporations, households, general government and financial sector, in a certain period. Financial net worth of the economy or any part thereof is calculated as the difference between the stocks of its financial assets (e.g. loans and deposits granted, investments in securities and holdings) and the stocks of its financial liabilities (e.g. loans and deposits received, inflows from the issued securities), with the total financial liabilities including debt liabilities, as well as the estimated financial worth of capital.

At the end of the first quarter of 2024, the financial assets of the Croatian economy stood at EUR 443bn (Figure 1), down by EUR 0.5bn in the quarter concerned and up by EUR 33.6bn in the period of one year. The financial liabilities of the Croatian economy stood at EUR 461bn, up by EUR 1.1bn in the quarter concerned and by EUR 33.3bn in the period of one year. In terms of GDP, at the end of the first quarter of 2024, the financial assets of the Croatian economy amounted to 567% of the annual GDP, down by 13.3 percentage points in the quarter concerned and down by 13.5 percentage points in the period of one year. At the same time, the financial liabilities of the Croatian economy in terms of GDP decreased by 11.7 percentage points in the quarter concerned and decreased by 16.5 percentage points in the period of one year, accounting for 590% of the annual GDP at the end of the first quarter of 2024. These quarterly developments continued the trend of decrease of both assets and liabilities of the Croatian economy in terms of GDP due to a slower increase in their value compared to the growth of quarterly GDP, although this trend slowed down significantly in the last three quarters compared to the two-year period from second quarter of 2021 to second quarter of 2023.

Figure 1 Financial assets and financial liabilities of the Croatian economy

At the end of the first quarter of 2024, the total financial assets and financial liabilities of households stood at EUR 90bn and EUR 25bn, respectively (Figure 2), which is an increase of 1.5% and 2.7% respectively from the end of the previous quarter, while in the period of one year, the financial assets of households increased by EUR 6.2bn or 7.4% and the financial liabilities of households went up by EUR 2.5bn or 10.9%. As a result, the financial net worth of the household sector increased and stood at EUR 65.1bn, up by 1.0% from the end of the previous quarter (i.e. EUR 3.8bn or 6.1% more than at the end of the same quarter of the previous year). Thus, the household sector's net worth continued the gradual increase that began in the second quarter of 2022 shortly after the end of the period of accelerated growth that lasted from the second quarter of 2020 to the fourth quarter of 2021.

Figure 2 Financial assets and liabilities of the household sector^[2]

At the end of the first quarter of 2024, the total financial assets of non-financial corporations stood at EUR 130bn (Figure 3), growing by 0.8% from the end of the previous quarter. The financial liabilities of non-financial corporations amounted to EUR 188bn or 1.9% more than at the end of the previous quarter. In line with such developments, the financial net worth of the non-financial corporations sector decreased to –EUR 58.7bn, down by 4.4% from the end of the previous quarter.

Figure 3 Financial assets and liabilities of the non-financial corporations sector

Statistical time series: Financia accounts

1. Financial accounts statistics shows the indicators of stocks, transactions, valuation adjustments and other changes in financial assets and liabilities in the economy, classified by sectors and by financial instruments, on the basis of the currently available data sources. These include the CNB's monetary statistics and external statistics, statistical reports of the Croatian Financial Services Supervisory Agency, annual reports of non-financial corporations collected by the Financial Agency, reports on general government equity holdings in corporations by the Ministry of Finance of the Republic of Croatia, Ministry of Physical Planning, Construction and State Assets and Restructuring and Sale Centre, data on general government debt by the Ministry of Finance and the CNB, as well as the Zagreb Stock Exchange trading reports. ↑

2. Apart from households, the household sector also includes non-profit institutions serving the household sector (associations of citizens, etc.). ↑