Croatian National Bank has completed the first phase of the project aimed at harmonizing the BOP statistics with current international standards. A more detailed report on activities performed within the project, as well as on results of the project will be made public after the report has been presented to the members of the Council of the Croatian National Bank at its regular session to be held at the beginning of February. However, it can be already announced that the new balance of payments indicators are more favorable than indicators presented so far.
On the basis of new calculation methods, which have significantly lowered the level of the item of statistical errors and omissions, it was concluded that the current account deficit in the first nine months of 1997 amounted to USD 1.41 billion, current account deficit realized in 1996 to USD 956.9 million and in 1995 to USD 1.21 billion. In 1994 and 1993, Croatia's current account was in surplus amounting to USD 442.4 million and USD 431.5 million respectively. These results are considerably more favorable than previously presented indicators according to which the current account deficit for 1996 was USD 1.45 billion and for 1995 USD 1.71 billion, whereas in 1994 and 1993 the current account was in surplus amounting to USD 103.4 million and USD 104 million respectively.
Experts from the Croatian central bank will discuss the results obtained with experts from the International Monetary Fund in the coming two weeks. Another subject of the discussion will be a work plan for the second phase of the revision of the balance of payments statistics, which is to be completed by the end of this year in order to ensure a more complete and reliable international comparability of BOP data in monitoring the overall economic and financial relations of Croatia with the world.
The project of revising the BOP statistics was initiated by the end of 1995 for the purpose of acquiring reliable indicators on trends of utmost importance to be used for reviewing the overall development of the country, as well as for conducting proper economic and monetary policy. During the first few years of Croatian political and monetary independence, it was very difficult to obtain a complete and reliable insight in these trends because, on one hand, the database and the statistical methodology were both inadequate, and on the other hand, it was not possible to monitor completely all cross-border flows of money and merchandise during the period of war. Therefore, it can be concluded that the normalization of the situation on all Croatian borders will, along with other things, facilitate the implementation of the improved balance of payments statistics, as well as of economic and monetary policy measures, which will enhance an effective involvement of Croatian economy in the international trade.