GENERAL MEETING DRAFT - Bankier.pl

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The end of 2009 appears to have halted the free fall in economic activity seen at the beginning of the
year. In fact, the rebound in world trade helped major economies pull out of the recession. However, while
on the one hand, the global recovery is under way and the risks of falling back into a recession are rather
limited, in the last quarter of the year, growth seems to have lost steam, since at least a part of the
temporary factors underlying recent improvement in the global economy are losing their effect. In major
developed economies (USA, Eurozone, UK and Japan), signs of "endogenous" growth are still scarce,
and prospects for consumption and investments remain subdued.
Despite improvement in the last two quarters, the overall situation is characterized by weak private
demand: after having collapsed at the turn of the year, it impacted hevily on the growth performance for
the whole 2009: in the US, GDP contracted 2.5%, and it declined 4% in the Eurozone, while Japan
reported a more substantial decrease of 5.4%.
In the Eurozone, net exports and the rebuilding of inventories were the main factors that led to the recent
improvement in economic growth. In fact, the summer break brought good news on the exports side: the
world economy saw a rebound in global trade, which after dropping to all-time lows following the Lehman
Brothers collapse was up thanks to highly expansive fiscal and monetary policies implemented by
governments and central banks. Asian countries, particularly China, were the first to show signs of
recovery and to provide the greatest push to the growth in trade, followed by the US and the Eurozone. In
Q3 2009, eurozone exports rose by 3.1% on a quarterly basis, while imports were up by 3%. Annual
changes in these components are still negative, but better than those in previous quarters (-13.5% in Q3
compared to -17.2% in Q2 for exports; -11.8% in Q3 compared to -14.3% in Q2 for imports). It should also
be noted that an encouraging feature of this recovery is the high level of synchronization, increasing the
chances that signs of growth will strengthen globally in succession.
The second factor that seems to have played a significant role in the recent recovery was the rebuilding of
inventories: following the crisis and the unprecedented drop in demand, firms decided to slash their
production and satisfy their demand out of inventories, which dropped consequently. In recent months, as
a direct result of the extremely low level of inventories, it is likely that a swift upward adjustment in
production occurred, aimed at satisfying further increases in external demand.
Investment remained the weak spot in this fragile economic situation, continuing the downward trend of
some two years in the Eurozone (-0.7% in 2008 and -10.8% in 2009) and in Japan (-1.6% in 2008 and -
19.3% in 2009), while in the US the drop was significant, especially in 2009 (-17.8%) after moderate
growth in 2008 (1.8%). Firms are still having a hard time resuming capital expenditure, and this difficulty
will continue for all of 2010.
2009 CONSOLIDATED REPORTS AND ACCOUNTS
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