Ukraine and Russia will not hinder Poland’s growth

The Central Statistical Office of Poland (GUS) announced that Polish GDP will grow by 3.3 percent in the first quarter of 2014, Polish business news portal TVN 24 Biznes i Świat reported.

According to Michał Burek, an economist form Raiffeisen Polbank, the GUS’s estimates confirm a strong growth trend, which began in early 2014.

“The data do not confirm fears that the Ukrainian crisis will lower Poland’s tempo of growth, which is increasingly based on the internal demand. This was confirmed by the sales dynamics in the retail and building sectors from the first three months of 2014,” Burek told PAP.

Some experts were afraid that Russian embargo on EU pork and a plan to put an embargo on Polish fruits and vegetables would shrink Poland’s GDP growth in 2014.

“I think we will finish this year with a similar result and the average GDP growth will be between 3 and 3.5 percent, assuming there will be no external perturbations,” Michał Dybuła, head economist of BNP Paribas, told the Polish Press Agency (PAP).

“This result exceeds my and the market’s expectations, but this is not significant. Growth lasts and it seems that it is propelled by domestic demand,” Dybuła added.

The Polish data also reinforces wider confidence across Europe that the crisis in Ukraine, and a continued slowdown in Russia will not have a strongly negative impact.