The average forecast rose to 3pc from 2.8pc in December, the Croatian banking association HUB said on Monday.

This compares with the government's growth forecast of 2.5pc.

"The revision is more cautious than would have been expected. A rise in investments, largely due to the reliance on the European Union development funds, and consumer spending will remain key growth drivers," HUB said in a statement.

Croatia's economy expanded 3.9pc year-on-year in the first year.

HUB represents most Croatian lenders, around 90pc of which are owned by foreign banks mostly from Italy, Austria and Hungary.

The five chief economists expect on average growth to slow down to 2.5pc in 2020, while predicting a balanced budget this year and a deficit of 0.4pc of gross domestic product in 2020.

In 2017 and 2018 Croatia had a general budget surplus of 0.8pc and 0.2pc of GDP, respectively. For this year the government projected a gap of 0.3pc of GDP.

A positive fiscal performance is important for Croatia as it strives to adopt the euro in the next four to five years.

Last week, Zagreb formalised its bid to enter the European Exchange Mechanism (ERM-2), the waiting room for euro adoption.