The Polish economy grew by 3.1 percent year-on-year and 0.9 percent quarter-on-quarter in the second quarter of 2016, according to the Central Statistical Office (GUS). Economists polled by the Polish Press Agency expected the economy to have grown by 3.3 percent in the second quarter of 2016.
Małgorzata Starczewska-Krzysztoszek, chief economist of Lewiatan (the Polish business organisation representing employers’ interests in Poland and the European Union), noted that this data means that the government’s GDP growth forecast for 2016 is no longer feasible. “The rate of GDP growth in the first half of the year is worrying, it will not be possible to reach 3.8 percent growth this year as is forecast in the government’s budget,” she explained.
The economist Professor Tomasz Gruszecki said that the forecast might need to be revised, commenting, “3.8 percent growth [in 2016] is possible, but an optimistic forecast […] I would rather bet on 3.4 percent, maximum 3.5 percent.”
However Deputy Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki called the data encouraging, arguing that weaker growth was due to mistakes made by the previous government when preparing investment plans for 2016. Morawiecki also noted that the labour market is in good shape, with unemployment at a record low and rising wages.
