Croatia
The light green area is the rest of the European Union
Croatia was the 74th largest economy in the world by nominal GDP in 2018. GDP per capita is $14,869 USD. A member of the former Yugoslavia it joined the EU in 2013. Since independence, tourism has emerged as a key industry. Services was the largest economic sector in 2018 (58 percent of GDP), followed by manufacturing (11.9 percent), and agriculture (2.9 percent). In 2017, the largest export sectors were services (49 percent), agriculture (11.2 percent), and chemicals (8.24 percent). The largest individual exports were travel and tourism (35 percent), and ICT services (9.6 percent). Its largest export partners were Italy (11.6 percent), Germany (11.4 percent), Slovenia (10.15 percent), and Bosnia (9.8 percent). The largest goods imports were crude oil (6.45 percent), refined petroleum (4.5 percent), cars (4.43 percent), and electrical energy (3.12 percent). Croatia's economy suffered badly during the Croatian War of Independence. On top of the transition from the Yugoslav socialist economy, it lost the key market of Serbia for its manufactured products, and tourism collapsed. After the war, the economy recovered reaching growth of over 6 percent. It was led by macroeconomic stabilisation, a rebound in tourism, post-war reconstruction, and credit-driven consumer spending. Privatisation also played an important part helping to push the share of the private sector from 30 percent to 80 percent by the end of the 1990s. Exports however were not increasing and by 1998 an external balance crisis developed and when the government responded with tighter monetary policy the economy went into recession. In the 2000s the economy again grew strongly buoyed by strong capital flows and domestic credit growth but public debt also increased leaving the economy exposed when the global financial crisis hit. By 2015, growth had recovered, and since then fiscal reforms have helped reduce imbalances. Unemployment has also been falling but further gains can be made by increasing the low participation rate. Reforms in education and increased investment in research and development will also help future growth.