In the first quarter of this year, industrial production in Poland grew a healthy 6.2 percent compared with the same period last year, the Rzeczpospolita daily newspaper reported on Friday.
Meanwhile, German industry plunged by almost 30 percent in the first three months of 2019, adding to an almost uninterrupted downward trend that began in that country in August last year, according to the Polish paper.
In a change from previous years, however, the slowdown in Germany appears to have not affected Polish industry, Rzeczpospolita reported.
The paper said this could be due to strong domestic demand and a changing model of economic development under Poland’s ruling conservatives, who took power in 2015.
One expert, Jarosław Janecki, chief economist at the Polish division of French banking and financial services company Société Générale, told the paper that the upbeat performance of Polish industry was in part due to an increasing production of capital goods.
“Domestic orders related to investment and positive sentiment in the construction sector are neutralising the effect of weaker demand abroad,” he said.
Another expert, Jakub Borowski, chief economist at Crédit Agricole Bank Polska, pointed out that production of building materials has exhibited solid growth in Poland in recent months amid robust trends in the construction sector.
The paper said analysts believe Polish industry will continue to grow in the months ahead on the back of a fiscal stimulus package adopted by the Polish government.
Polish senators last Friday backed a plan to give pensioners a cash boost, a move pledged by the country's ruling conservatives as part of a new package of benefits.
The payouts are part of an ambitious new set of spending pledges unveiled by Poland’s governing conservatives during a party convention in late February.
Industrial production in Poland grew 5.6 percent in March compared with the same month a year earlier, the country’s Central Statistical Office (GUS) said on Thursday.
In February, Polish industrial production grew 6.9 percent in year-on-year terms, the statistics office reported last month.
(gs)
Source: rp.pl