Finance minister presents ‘difficult’ 2012 budget draft

Rostowski in parliament, Wednesday:

Minister Jacek Rostowski's presentation is being followed by a six-hour parliamentary debate on the draft budget for next year.

“On the one hand we have a strong Polish economy that is increasingly driven by rapidly growing investment,” he said.

However, he stressed that on the other hand, the EU financial crisis had become acute, which has resulted in three different estimates for GDP growth being included in the budget draft.

“In September, when we sent the first draft of this budget to parliament, who could have predicted the turmoil surrounding the proposed Greek referendum or the fall of the governments in Greece or Italy?

“If it were not for external threats, the [Polish] economy would only accelerate in 2012,” he said.

Owing to the EU crisis, Rostowski said that the government had chosen a middle of the road version of the budget for the coming year.

The draft budget has been created under the assumption that Poland's GDP will grow by 2.5 percent.

The budget deficit will not exceed 35 billion zloty (7.6 billion euro), and the public finance sector deficit will not exceed 3 percent.

Meanwhile, state expenditure should not go above a maximum of 328.8 billion zloty (72 billion euros), with revenues forecast at 293.8 billion zloty (64.3 billion euro ).

Today's parliamentary session began with a minute's silence in memory of the victims of martial law, the communist-led crackdown that began thirty years on 13 December 1981. (nh/pg)

Source: PAP