Analysts fear the economy is running out of steam

This means that economic growth in 2004 was temporary and resulted from a good economic situation prior to EU accession," said Richard Mbewe, chief economist with WGI. In Q1 2005 industrial output increased by just 0.7% with respect to previous year, while retail sales decreased by 0.4%. "The drop in April's sales will be very deep, which does not bode well for Q2 economic growth," said Stanisław Kluza, chief economist with BGŻ. In March, the unemployment rate dropped by 0.1% to 19.3% and currently 3.05 million people are out of work, out of whom 2.63 million have no right to unemployment benefit. "Unemployment will remain high. We should not expect a sudden acceleration of the economy. To achieve this goal, we would need, for example, the lowering of taxes or a substantial cut in interest rates," said Mbewe. However, entrepreneurs are far more optimistic despite the negative macroeconomic data. (Puls Biznesu, pp. 1, 6) M.M.