Polish economy grows official 0.5 per cent in quarter

(WARSAW) - Poland again stood out on Monday as the only European Union country to plough through the crisis with steady growth this year, reporting 0.5-percent expansion in the third quarter.

"In the third quarter of 2009, real growth in seasonally-adjusted GDP (gross domestic product) was 0.5 percent compared to the previous quarter and was 1.0 percent higher than last year," said Poland's Central Statistical Office.

Poland is the only member of the European Union to sustain growth this year, although many EU economies have now escaped recession.

The economy grew by 0.5 percent in the second quarter.

The statistics office had initially said that the economy had grown by 0.3 percent in the first quarter, before later revising the figure to 0.1 percent.

Seasonally-unadjusted figures showed that the 2004 EU entrant scored 1.7 percent third-quarter growth on an annual basis.

Poland's output is expected to expand by 1.0-1.4 percent this year and by 1.2-2.5 percent in 2010, according to various Polish government and international forecasts.