Poland has been ranked sixth among 23 rich countries in an index compiled by The Economist comparing how well economies have done during the pandemic.
The weekly newspaper examined changes during the pandemic in five economic and financial indicators: GDP, household income per person, share prices, investment, and public debt in relation to GDP.
Based on those factors, it found that Denmark, Slovenia and Sweden had fared best, while Spain, the United Kingdom and Japan were worst. Poland was in joint sixth place alongside Ireland, just below Chile and Norway and above the Netherlands and the United States.
Health & economy are entwined,so poor performance of British economy during C-19 is a public health concern.
23 high income OECD countries ranked on 5 indicators: gdp,household incomes,stockmarket performance,capital spending & government indebtedness.https://t.co/NoIDvDIgYJ pic.twitter.com/NwsnjSBlMj
— Mike Brannan (@BrannanM) January 3, 2022
Poland performed particularly strongly in regard to its public debt, which rose only 5 percentage points in relation to GDP. Only three other countries – Norway, Ireland and Denmark – had lower figures. Likewise, the 3.1% increase in Poland’s GDP was bettered only by Ireland, Chile, and Norway.
By contrast, Spain saw GDP shrink by 6.6% and debt-to-GDP increase by 22.3 percentage points, while for Britain the figures were 2.1% and 21.9 percentage points respectively.
Poland’s 3.3% increase in household income per person and 25.4% increase in share prices were both the ninth best among the 23 countries included in the index. Poland did, however, see investment fall 7.1%, which was among the worst outcomes of any country.
Main image credit: Adam BorkowskiUnsplash/
Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.
