Corona virus is spreading faster.
Being BITE Consulting Services, a Polish company, we are also closely following the course of the events, especially Coronavirus pandemic in Poland. Poland has just been added to the UK’s list of countries requiring a 14-day quarantine on return. The Polish government has stated it will not introduce a second lockdown or close borders. The number of new daily cases in Poland rose after lockdown was eased and reached a record peak of 1587 last week. This is significantly higher than at any point during the pandemic and we still advise at-risk travelers to stay away for now. Most transport into Poland by road, rail, and sea from other EU countries is now back to normal. The situation with flights is subject to change every fortnight. The United States remains on the banned flight list but all EU countries have been removed. The draft list of banned countries is: Belize, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Brazil, Bahrain, Israel, Qatar, Kuwait, Libya, UAE, Argentina, Chile, Ecuador, India, Iraq, Colombia, Costa Rica, Lebanon, North Macedonia, Maldives, Moldova, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Trinidad and Tobago, Cape Verde, United States of America, Oman, and the Bahamas.
September Monthly Meeting 'The effects of COVID-19 on the Polish economy.
Mr. Piotr Arak, Director of the Polish Economic Institute said that The Polish economy has relatively handled the challenge of the pandemic rather well regarding the decline in activity triggered by the epidemic restrictions. He confirmed that previous predictions announced by PIE were in the negative with a GDP drop in Q2 by 8.2% year-over-year, and it was close to experts’ predictions. However, taking into account the latest results of the research on consumption expenditure conducted by PIE, Mr. Arak drew a very optimistic picture of the next few months.
During the discussion, Mr. Sławomir Dudek, the Chief Economist at the Employers of Poland, noted that the unprecedented demand shock, which hit companies in the early spring in many industries, left its mark for a long time. Employers expect that the coming months will be a test for the entire economy, its strength to rebuild a potential of growth, as well as resistance to uncertainty about the second wave of the pandemic. Unfortunately, there is a risk that the unemployment rate will increase again with the end of financial support by public funds „We are facing a fragile revival of the economy”, said Mr. Dudek.
From the perspective of the financial markets, Mr. Piotr Kalisz, Chief Economist at Citi Handlowy, highlighted a few important issues. First of all, he argued that public funds have helped many companies maintain their liquidity, but still many companies feel uncertainty, which greatly constrains their market expansion strategies.
The panelists also drew our attention to foreign economic relations. It is worth noting that the Polish economy has recently been strengthened by exports, which increased GDP in the first half of 2020. This was the result of a smaller scale in restrictions in Poland's main trading partners and a rapid recovery from the crisis by German manufacturers who were also contractors for Polish suppliers of components. This perhaps allowed them to avoid more severe losses in the Polish industry. At the same time, the volume of foreign orders is growing faster than domestic orders, which bodes well for the remainder of Q3’2020. Very favorable in this context is the relatively higher diversification of exports than in other countries in our region, i.e. the Czech Republic or Slovakia, whose export recovery is much slower after a strong decline in the demand in the automotive industry.