Business figures query Finance Ministry's doom-laden investment forecast

"Despite the fact that we believe forecasts of the Finance Minister envisaging investment growth of 10% in 2005 are inflated, growth of 1% is also surprising," said Tomasz Uchman from the BCC. Experts agree that business conditions in the country are not perfect, but there were no reasons why the investments growth should be lower than in previous quarters. Doubts concerning the information provided by the Central Statistical Office (GUS) are also shared by the producers of investment commodities. "In April, the value of our orders reached a record high level of zł.70 million. Most likely in H1 it will amount to zł.200 million. At the same time we observe that demand for construction sites specialists has gone significantly up," said Jacek Faltynowicz, president of Elektrobudowa. (Parkiet, p. 8) M.M.