Croatia

The lands that today comprise Croatia were part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire until the close of World War I. In 1918, the Croats, Serbs, and Slovenes formed a kingdom known after 1929 as Yugoslavia. Following World War II, Yugoslavia became a federal independent Communist state under the strong hand of Marshal TITO. Although Croatia declared its independence from Yugoslavia in 1991, it took four years of sporadic, but often bitter, fighting before occupying Serb armies were mostly cleared from Croatian lands. Under UN supervision, the last Serb-held enclave in eastern Slavonia was returned to Croatia in 1998. In April 2009, Croatia joined NATO; it is a candidate for eventual EU accession.

Economical characteristics

 * Currency: Kuna (ISO code: HRK)
 * Central bank discount rate: 9% (31 December 2009)
 * Commercial banks lending rate: 9.85% (30 November 2009)
 * Stock of money (M1): $9.27 billion (31 December 2009)
 * Quasi money (with M1 makes M2): $34.57 billion (31 December 2009)

Notable events:

 * Banking crisis: 1996

Links

 * Croatia on Wikipedia
 * Central bank of Croatia
 * Country profile (pdf) from the Enterprise Studies page (part of the The World Bank Group)
 * BBC country profile
 * Involuntary Unemployment: The Case of Serbia and Croatia by Predrag Rajsic, May 2010