The end of the third quarter and the first half of the fourth will be a time of an exceptionally important test for Poland’s economic policy. The result of consultations between individual ministries on the 2009 budget bill will be announced in September. A parliamentary debate on next year’s budget and on related medium-term macroeconomic forecasts will be held in the first half of the fourth quarter. We will write about it in the next two issues of Economic Monitor.
For quite some time we have pointed to the need to counteract several major threats to the Polish economy. On the labour market, as jobs are on the rise and unemployment is declining, employers have increasing difficulty recruiting suitable workers. If growth in labour productivity continues to outpace wage growth in the long run companies may lose their competitive advantages, which may lead to recession and an economic crisis. Labour migration to other countries has helped to bring unemployment down in Poland but at the same time it has also reduced the Polish pool of labour. So it is good news that the current economic policy attaches great weight to increasing economic activity rates among Polish people. We hope that the improvement in conditions for business activity promised by the government will help bring more people to the labour market. It is good that support for innovation, with more spending on research and development, science and education, is one of the top priorities for the government. Poland also has to make up for the delays in the development of its transport infrastructure and effectively use EU funds set aside for this purpose. The list of priorities is long and one must not forget about issues, like energy security and environmental considerations, that may lead to a disaster if neglected.
Zofia Bolkowska, Marek Misiak