Above: Nowy Świat, Warsaw's poshest retail thoroughfare. Christmas lights? Very tasteful. Pre-Christmas sales? Come off it. Consumer confidence is still high. Unemployment is still falling. New car sales are up 9% in the year to November compared to the same period in 2007. The banking sector and property developers may be wreathed in gloom, but elsewhere, the Polish economy looks to have enough impetus to leap the yawning chasm of global financial crisis and make it to the other side - just - without falling in. EU-funded infrastructure projects will help.
UPDATE: 18 December - gloomy industrial production figures for November 2008, much worse than analysts expected - an 8.9% year-on-year fall. Oh dear.
Above: Nowy Świat, Warsaw's poshest retail thoroughfare. Christmas lights? Very tasteful. Pre-Christmas sales? Come off it. Consumer confidence is still high. Unemployment is still falling. New car sales are up 9% in the year to November compared to the same period in 2007. The banking sector and property developers may be wreathed in gloom, but elsewhere, the Polish economy looks to have enough impetus to leap the yawning chasm of global financial crisis and make it to the other side - just - without falling in. EU-funded infrastructure projects will help.
UPDATE: 18 December - gloomy industrial production figures for November 2008, much worse than analysts expected - an 8.9% year-on-year fall. Oh dear.
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2 comments:
We strolled Nowy Świat, up to Krakowskie Przedmescie (spelling death) on Sunday. We were very, very impressed with the lights and the overall feel - a bit like parts of Vienna. (I was living in Nowy Miasto ul. Freta in 1990 and of course the difference in the city now is dramatic)
Thanks, Michael, you've saved me a visit to Nowy Swiat - a street I do not particularly like!
Yes, production figures not good. Poland has a lot of things going for it in this crisis but there is no way any country can come through it unchanged. I see signs of recession around me all the time now, not least in my own company.
Ho hum. Heads down and get on with the job.
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