All rise for Marek Belka

June was rather quiet on the Warsaw Stock Exchange. The WIG-20 index hovered between 1640 - 1700 points. Turnover was visibly lower than during the previous six months - especially in the second week, which was shorter because of the Corpus Christi holiday. The indexes' movements were caused by individual events such as the elections to the European Parliament. From 21st June the index of blue-chips, together with the WIG, started to rise slowly. Analysts said that this was a result of the increasing likelihood of an endorsement for the prime minister, Marek Belka, in a confidence vote. On the 24th June he won the vote and at the end of June the WIG-20 index crossed the 1700 barrier. However one question remains - will July be a quiet holiday month on the WSE or will it be like last year, when most share values increased? As far as the construction sector is concerned, the first half of June was quite successful - mainly owing to GTC's large weighting in the WIG Construction Index. Otherwise turnover in the sector was rather low. After the high rise of construction and assembly production in April (26 pct y/y and 45.8 pct m/m), in May output fell back. It dropped by 17.4 pct m/m and 13.4 pct compared to May of last year, though industrial production as a whole advanced by 12.3 pct. The fall in construction was due to Polish accession to the European Union - and the resultant increase in VAT from 1st May - which encouraged many firms to draw up invoices a month earlier.

Contributed by:

Mirosław Kuk