4 days ago
Were Fitch to downgrade Poland’s rating, what would be the consequences?
The main event for the Polish macro calendar this week will be the preliminary Q2 2026 GDP estimate. We expect growth to have accelerated from 3.5% y/y to 3.9% y/y, driven by strong manufacturing and construction activity as well as solid retail sales. We believe investment, inventories, and net exports were the key growth drivers, while the contribution from private consumption remained relatively weak. Confirmation will have to wait until the end of August, when the second GDP release provides a detailed breakdown of growth components.
1 week ago
Beginning of August will be tranquil in Poland
Except for the Manufacturing PMI reading on Monday morning, there are no macroeconomic releases scheduled for this week. Global markets are waiting for Friday’s U.S. Payrolls report, and carefully assessing geopolitical developments in the Middle East. Furthermore, in this report we analyse the changing structure of the Polish mortgage market due to refinancing.
2 weeks ago
Fuel prices once again fuelled inflation in Poland
Poland’s CPI inflation accelerated to 3.0% yoy in July, as expected, mainly due to a rebound in fuel prices following the expiry of government protective measures and renewed geopolitical tensions pushing oil prices higher. Both headline and core inflation are expected to remain within the 3.0-3.5% yoy range until the end of the year. In this environment, the Monetary Policy Council (MPC) is likely to remain cautious and postpone decisions on further interest rate changes until there is greater clarity regarding the inflation outlook.
3 weeks ago
News of Polish consumers’ death were greatly exaggerated (so far)
Retail sales surprised on the upside once again, rising 6.2% yoy (about 1 pp. faster than forecasted). After several months of volatility, retail sales have normalized in terms of both growth and structure. This bodes better for private consumption than we had anticipated a few months ago, although still needs to be weighed against this year’s decline in consumer purchasing power and the weakness in services consumption. We maintain our view that private consumption will slow this year.
3 weeks ago
It was a good quarter for the Polish economy
An acceleration in manufacturing and a rebound in construction and assembly output following the cold spell in the first months of the year gave us the fastest growth in industrial and construction output in over four years – up 3.7% qoq. June itself was merely the culmination of a strong quarter, though it naturally brought solid increases in output. We estimate that in the second quarter of this year, GDP accelerated to 3.8% yoy.
3 weeks ago
Manufacturing drives wages acceleration in Poland
Wage growth unexpectedly accelerated to 5.9% yoy in June, following May’s increase (5.8%) that had been largely driven by one-off factors. The reading came in well above the consensus forecast (5.5%). The acceleration was entirely attributable to a sharp increase in wages in manufacturing, which alone added around 0.5 percentage points to the headline figure. Meanwhile, employment growth remained stable at -0.9% yoy.