Contributions paid by employees and employers into the state-run pension fund accounted for almost 75.7% of the revenue, the highest proportion since 1996.

The share of contributions paid by employees and employers increased by 3.4 percentage points compared to 2016, said ZPIZ general manager Marijan Papež in presenting the report, which was already endorsed by the institute's council.

The highest share of ZPIZ's funds went for pensions. They accounted for 84.3% of total expenditure and 20.03% of GDP or EUR 4.3bn. In 2016, they stood at 10.44% of GDP.

Last year, the average number of those receiving pensions based on mandatory insurance was up by 0.2% to 615,681, which Papež said was the lowest pace of growth in the last 27 years.

The number of old-age pensioners rose by 1% to 440,247. In the last 21 years, the pace of growth was slower only in 2016, when the number of pensioners was up by 0.8%.

The ratio between the number of contribution payers and the number of pensioners reached 1.49, which is the best ratio since 2012, when it was 1.46.

The monthly average old-age pension amounted to 58.4% of the average monthly net wage, which the representative of employers in ZPIZ council, Tatjana Čerin, labelled "rather unfavourable".