Growth is all around us

At a time when analysts all over the world are wondering whether the current historic peaks on the global stock exchanges signal a repeat of the calamitous speculative bubble of 2007/2008, the indexes in Poland have been rather more static. The WIG20, which has reached 2,500 points, is still 1,500 points lower than in the summer of 2007. Why? There are two reasons: the first is the weakness of the economy. With the exception of the financial sector, the economy in Poland is experiencing its most serious slowdown in the last twelve years. Even though there is much that points to the slowdown having bottomed out in H1 (when there was a GDP increase of only 0.5 pct y-o-y), a quick return to growth of 3–4 pct is clearly not on the cards. According to preliminary estimates, GDP grew by 0.8 pct in Q2. The second factor preying on the minds of investors is the issue of open pension funds. The day after the government announced its proposals for resolving this issue, the Warsaw Stock Ex