Business sentiment in Polish manufacturing better than expected
Polish manufacturing PMI rose from 46.6 pts in August to 48.0 pts in September, exceeding market expectations, which were in line with our forecast (47.0 pts). What pushed the index up in September was a stronger contribution of 4 out of its 5 components (current output, new orders, employment, and inventories), while a lower contribution of delivery times had the opposite effect. Despite the growth recorded in September, the PMI has remained below the 50-point mark separating growth from contraction for 5 consecutive months.
Polish manufacturing sees a surprising increase in production backlogs
Notably, production backlogs increased for the first time since April 2025, with the index rising above 50 pts. This is unusual, as in recent quarters firms had maintained activity by fulfilling outstanding orders, and this is only the second time since May 2022 that the backlogs have started to grow. The increase was driven by a slower decline in new orders, including export orders, compared with the previous month. In accordance with the press release, some enterprises received orders from the European markets again. Stronger foreign demand is consistent with the business survey results for the Eurozone published over the last couple of months, which mostly showed that the situation in the manufacturing sector was improving (see MACROmap of 29/09/2025), although the indexes for new orders remain clearly below the 50-point mark. Nonetheless, they went up, and this slowed the decline in current output between August and September. In our view, this suggests that the September increase in production backlogs is atypical (production keeps slowing, while backlogs are growing).
Unwavering optimism in the Polish manufacturing sector
The index value for production expected over a 12-month horizon did not change between August and September, and remains well above the 50-point mark. The surveyed companies justified their optimism with economic recovery, new markets, funds from the National Recovery Plan and new products. In our view, the broad-based increase in PMI components, which, after several months of divergence, drew closer to the values observed in the Eurozone indicates that there is room for improvement in business sentiment in the Polish manufacturing sector in the quarters to come.
Our GDP growth forecast remains unchanged
Polish manufacturing PMI went down from 47.4 pts in Q2 to 46.8 pts in Q3. Nonetheless, we stand by our forecast that Poland’s GDP growth accelerated to 3.8% YoY in Q3, from 3.4% in Q2, and will reach 3.6% in 2025, up from 2.9% in 2024. In our opinion, the slowdown in manufacturing was offset by heightened activity in services.
