"The government is adjusting the budget for 2020 to the situation related to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic,” the Government Information Centre said.
“The spread of the coronavirus has contributed to the biggest economic crisis in recent years, which contributed to a sharp slowdown in economic activity in Poland and other countries affected by the pandemic," the centre added in a statement.
The government last year approved plans for an ambitious balanced 2020 budget. Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki at the time said it would be the country’s first without a deficit since the fall of communism and the start of market reforms three decades ago.
That budget expected the economy to grow 3.7 percent in 2020.
Under the plans approved on Thursday, the government expects Polish GDP to shrink 4.6 percent this year.
The governments also expects unemployment to rise to 8 percent at the end of the year, up from 5.2 percent at the end of 2019.
The Polish economy contracted 8.2 percent in the second quarter of this year, the country’s Central Statistical Office (GUS) said last Friday in a flash estimate.
(pk)
Source: PAP