Croatian Bureau of Statistics

Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic told a cabinet meeting on Monday that the Croatian government has extended by two weeks to November 14 the deadline for the completion of the population census because of difficulties caused by the pandemic.

This is the latest in a series of articles about the demographic crisis facing Central and Southeast Europe.

See also: Bye-Bye, Balkans: A Region in Critical Demographic Decline

According to Bosnjak, emigration from the country peaked last year and an increased number of births in 2018 heralded some really good news.

Although recent statistics show Croatia had the biggest annual drop in the unemployment rate in the EU last year, figures also show the number of people in work in Croatia has also declined.

A report published on Tuesday by the EU statistical agency Eurostat said Croatia's unemployment rate fell from 15 per cent in December 2015 to 11.4 per cent in December 2016.

Experts have expressed divided opinions after the Croatian Bureau of Statistics reported that the volume of the industrial production in December 2016 was 14.9 per cent higher than 12 months earlier.

The figure represents the biggest annual growth since 2001, when such statistics were made for the first time by the Bureau, as well as a rise of four per cent on November 2016.

“We expect that this year’s income from tourism will for the first time exceed the record high of 7.4 billion euro in 2008,” a tourism ministry representative told BIRN on Tuesday.

According to official data, the number of foreign and domestic tourists over the past five months increased by 74,000 on 2013 figures, reaching 2.1 million.