ZAGREB, Oct. 24 (Xinhua) -- At the end of the second quarter of 2017, Croatia's public debt dropped by 4.5 percentage points, which is the largest decrease among European Union member states, Eurostat reported on Tuesday.
Croatia's public debt totaled 287.25 billion HRK (45.03 billion U.S. dollars) and it now amounts 81.9 percent of the country's GDP.
Croatian Finance Minister Zdravko Maric said on Tuesday that the latest Eurostat data shows that a positive trend of debt to GDP ratio decrease is continuing in 2017.
He added that the government plans to further reduce the general deficit and that he expects the public debt to be around 80 percent of GDP at the end of the year.
"This is also important from the perspective that we are on the verge for the next step, to increase the credit rating," Maric said.
He said that he would continue to cut debt to GDP ratio by 2.5 to 3 percentage points a year, which means the government is ready to fulfill its program and reduce the share of debt so it gets below 75 percent of the country's GDP.
Compared with the first quarter of 2017, seven EU states registered an increase in their debt to GDP ratio, 20 a decrease, while the debt ratio in Britain remained stable, according to Eurostat.
