3 days ago
Steady as she goes: Polish economy regained momentum in Q4
No important events or macro releases are scheduled for the week. Not even a MPC meeting, which – unusually – will take place in the second, not the first week of the month. Geopolitics, trade policy and US labor market data will dominate the newsflow.
1 week ago
Polish consumers are back in the game
Compared to industrial or construction output there was no doubt or nuance regarding the strength of January retail sales data. This suggests that Polish consumers stopped saving excessively. There is even some scope for a positive surprise in 2025.
2 weeks ago
The Polish investment recovery: the end of the beginning, not the beginning of the end
Today, Statistics Poland published new data on industrial and construction output. The former turned out to be close to the consensus forecast (-1% yoy), while the latter (+4.3% yoy) surprised to the upside. The growth rates are not spectacular, but we perceive them as part of a long process that will result in significant GDP growth acceleration this year.
2 weeks ago
Poor start to the year for the Polish labor market
The January wage reading was in line with the consensus (9.2% yoy), but the growth rate still means persistent strong wage pressure, which may worry the MPC. In addition, we saw a strong disappointment in employment growth (-0.9% yoy vs. expected -0.7%), which is not a result of a sudden collapse in the labor market. Below we explain what factors caused such a deep drop.
2 weeks ago
The beginning of 2025 with inflationary (negative) surprise in Poland
After a short break, emotions related to inflation publications from Poland’s economy have returned. Moreover, they have returned with a rather strong accent, because January CPI reading surprised (as in other countries in the region) upwards, accelerating to 5.3% yoy from 4.7% in the previous month. This reading is clearly higher than market expectations (5.0%). Compared to the previous month, consumer prices increased by 1.0%.
3 weeks ago
Poland was one of EU's three fastest-growing economies in Q4'24
As indicated by preliminary estimates of annual GDP, Polish economy accelerated to 3.2% yoy in Q4'24. The current economic recovery remains slow by historical standards. Despite this, Poland was EU's fastest-growing large economy and one of top three in general.