The number of foreign orders for Polish products has been declining, Mateusz Morawiecki, the Polish prime minister, has said.
Poland’s purchasing managers’ index dropped to 40.9 points in August from 42.1 points in July, S&P Global reported on Thursday. The reading is the lowest since the 2020 Covid-19 lockdown crisis and close to the low during the global financial crisis of 2008. In the eurozone, the reading was at 49.6. Anything lower than 50 signals a contraction.
“The economic activity has been weakening over the recent months,” Morawiecki said at a press conference in Osieck near Warsaw on Friday. “It is related to a very difficult economic situation across Europe.”
Morawiecki conceded that Polish exporters are in trouble despite a very weak domestic currency, which normally should boost exports.
“This means that the number of foreign orders has been falling, and foreign orders are a very important part of Polish production because Poland does a lot of manufacturing for various conglomerates and foreign customers,” the prime minister said.
“We’re now at a stage of contracting economic activity in many companies, but we’re making efforts to keep domestic demand at an adequate level,” Morawiecki said. “But we do need foreign demand to absorb the products and services that Polish manufacturers and companies produce.”