Speaking after a meeting of his Cabinet, Mateusz Morawiecki said that Poland’s 2020 budget would be the country’s first without a deficit since the fall of communism and the start of market reforms three decades ago.
The announcement came after the Rzeczpospolita daily newspaper a day earlier reported that the conservative government in Warsaw was planning to bring Poland's 2020 budget out of deficit for the first time since 1989 in an unprecedented move despite hefty social spending.
Morawiecki’s Cabinet on Tuesday adopted a preliminary draft budget for 2020 that expects the economy to grow a healthy 3.7 percent, with inflation targeted at 2.5 percent, state news agency PAP reported.
Government ministers approved a deficit-free budget with revenue and spending balanced next year at PLN 429.5 billion (EUR 98.3 billion, USD 109.1 billion), the news agency reported.
The Polish economy grew 4.4 percent in the second quarter of this year, the country’s Central Statistical Office (GUS) said earlier this month in a flash estimate.
Morawiecki commented at the time that the data ranked Poland "among European and global leaders in terms of economic growth."
Poland finished 2018 with a budget deficit of PLN 10.4 billion (some EUR 2.4 billion), just a quarter of the target for last year, the country's then-finance minister said in February.
(gs/pk)
Source: TVP Info, PAP
