Economists note government failure to achieve long-term strategy goals

During Friday's meeting of the Prime Minister's Social-Economic Strategy Council, economists admitted the government has failed to accomplish its Strategy for Public Finances and Development - Poland 2000-2010, adopted two years ago, that assumed particularly fast economic growth and decrease of unemployment. It will be impossible to reduce the deficit of public finances to 1.8 % of GDP, as assumed in this year's budget. Cezary Jozefiak, member of Monetary Policy Council (RPP), said the deficit will settle at the level of 2.7% of GDP, while Finance Minister advisor Professor Stanislaw Gomulka said the deficit would clearly exceed budget assumptions by as much as one percentage point. Gomulka furthermore stressed that the failure to achieve the Strategy goals resulted from the lack of "sufficiently tight fiscal policy, an increase in savings and the reduction of tax burdens." (Prawo i Gospodarka, p. 2), M.T.