The majority of economists, mentioning problems in the global and European economy, have been writing and talking for some time about the upcoming economic recession, which is to translate into what is happening in the Polish economy.

For the time being, however, there is nothing to indicate this turn of events, moreover, from last week’s communication of the Central Statistical Office (GUS), which presented the flash estimate of Gross Domestic Product in the 3rd quarter of 2018 it appears that that seasonally adjusted GDP (constant prices, reference year 2010) was higher by 5.7% than in the 3rd quarter of the previous year and 1.7% higher than in the previous quarter. Seasonally unadjusted GDP (constant average prices of the previous year) was higher by 5.1 % than in the corresponding quarter of the previous year.

This means that this year, in relation to the analogous period of the previous year, the Polish economy developed at a rate of more than 5 percent: in the first quarter GDP growth amounted to 5%, in the second quarter - 5.2% and in the third quarter as much as 5.7%.

This is also the highest level of GDP growth in the third quarter in the entire European Union, ahead of Latvia, which recorded 5.5% GDP growth and Hungary with 5% GDP growth. Moreover, this growth is 3 times higher than the average growth in the euro zone countries, which was only 1.7% of GDP.

Due to the fact that the Central Statistical Office (GUS) provided the so-called flash estimate of Gross Domestic Product in the 3rd quarter of 2018, there is no information about factors that had the greatest impact on this result (it will be published by GUS on 30 November). It can be assumed, however, that these factors will be shaped similarly to the second quarter of this year.

It should be recalled that the 5.2% increase in GDP in the second quarter of 2018 was largely due to both consumption expenditure in the households sector and the public consumption expenditure (the former increased by 4.9%, the latter slightly less by 4.4%). The final consumption expenditure in comparison with the same quarter of the previous year increased by 4.8%.

Consequently, final consumption expenditure contributed to an increase of + 3.7 percentage points in the 2nd quarter, of which the impact of the consumption expenditure in households sector was +2.9 percentage points and public consumption expenditure was +0.8 percentage points.

The growth rate of gross fixed capital formation was weaker and amounted to 4.5%, while the entire so-called gross capital formation including also the change in inventories grew only by 4.9 % (against 21% in the 1st quarter of 2018).

As a result, gross capital formation contributed positively to the GDP growth amounting to + 0.9 percentage points (including the impact of gross fixed capital formation which was + 0.7 percentage points and changes in inventories + 0.2 percentage points).

To sum up, the contribution of domestic uses to economic growth was + 4.6 percentage points, and, to everyone’s surprise, the positive impact of the net exports to economic growth of + 0.5 percentage points was noted (in 1st quarter this impact was negative and amounted to -1.2 percentage points).

These are all very optimistic data for the three quarters of 2018, as far as GDP growth is concerned, amounting to over 5%. It bodes well for the whole of 2018, although it should be remembered that the assumptions made in the budget were extremely cautious (they assumed GDP growth in 2018 amounting only to 3.8%).

It seems that we should be optimistic with regard to the whole 2018. The economic growth may be significantly higher than planned (by at least 1 percentage point); although to a large extent it will be possible with even more decisive increase in investment and improvement in the foreign trade balance.

The signals from our main trading partners (mainly Germany) may be a bit disturbing, where GDP fell by 0.2% compared to the previous quarter, although it still grew by 1.2% compared to the corresponding quarter of the previous year. . This information can also be treated as an optimistic signal, as it turns out that the Polish economy is doing very well, which is reflected in GDP growth of as much as 5.7% in the third quarter of 2018, while at the same time, we are observing a clear slowdown in economic growth in the close neighbourhood.