"The year is expected to reflect another period of moderate economic growth. Fitch forecasts Polish real GDP growth of 2.3% in 2010, relative to the boom years of 2006-08, when growth averaged 5.9%," the report reads.

Fitch noted that Poland was the only country in the EU which avoided recession in 2009, recording real GDP growth of 1.7% while the rest of the EU is estimated to have contracted by 5.8% on average last year. "Nevertheless, the business environment and cash flows in many corporate sectors suffered substantially. This included cyclical sectors, particularly those impacted by global oversupply and depressed margins," it added.

Fitch Ratings believes that the 2010 outlook for Polish corporates has improved moderately due in part to fewer uncertainties concerning the economic environment and because of improved access by corporate issuers to external funding compared to early 2009.

The 2010 central budget law stipulates for GDP growth of 1.2% this year (vs. last year's 1.7) but the government's representatives repeatedly admitted that it would be much higher - deputy PM and economy minister Waldemar Pawlak even said that it could exceed 3.0%.

Finance minister Jacek Rostowski admitted recently that the new update of the EU convergence report - to be passed still on Monday - would stipulate for higher GDP growth rates than the September assumptions to the state budget.

The base scenario of the current update to the EU's convergence programme stipulates for GDP growth of 3.0% in 2010, 4.5% in 2011 and 4.2% in 2012, a high-ranking government source has told the Polish Press Agency (PAP), thus confirming earlier unofficial information. In the pessimistic scenario, the Polish economy would grow by 2.7% in 2010, by 3.7% in 2011 and by 3.5% in 2012.

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