Poland Real Estate Report Q3 2012

The Poland Real Estate report examines the Commercial Office, Retail and Industrial segments throughout the country in the context of one of the few major economies in Europe to have escaped recession

With a focus on the principal cities of Warsaw, Krakow, Gdansk, Sopot and Gdynia, the report covers the rental market performance in terms of rates and yields over the past 18 months and examines how best to maximise returns in the commercial real estate market, while minimising investment risk and exploring the impact of the potential lull in demand (especially in the infrastructure sector) after the Euro 2012 tournament, weakening domestic demand, and vulnerability to the eurozone

Amid these headwinds, we maintain our relatively constructive view on the Polish economy in 2012 despite an increasingly grim global outlook and Polands deep level of interconnectedness with Western European banks We expect investment to post robust - if reduced - growth Although our 2012 GDP growth forecast is below consensus, we still expect Poland to be a growth outperformer in emerging Europe The country is therefore likely to continue attracting investment In addition, it will continue to benefit from significant amounts of EU cohesion funds: Poland is expected to benefit from EUR66bn between 2007 and 2013 (representing around 3% of Polish GDP a year) The 2014-20 Structural and Cohesion Fund is expected to be increased Our Infrastructure team has identified road building, as well as renewable and nuclear power, as sectors that are likely to continue attracting large amounts of investment

Key Points

- Although Poland is not a member of the single currency, and is therefore protected from the eurozone turmoil to some extent, continued economic upheaval in the eurozone would affect the export markets on which Poland relies (and so its wider damage economy)

- While we anticipate that Poland will be a regional growth outperformer in 2012, our real GDP growth forecast of 2 5% is below the consensus of 3 0% A slowdown in eurozone economic activity will hit exports and fiscal retrenchment will dampen Polands domestic demand

- The governments austerity drive, which has already yielded significant pension reforms, should ultimately improve Polands sovereign risk profile

- In addition to Polands exposure to the eurozone crisis, the domestic economic slowdown, combined with the governments austerity drive, will also drag on the real estate market

- Investment, a key driver of Polands domestic demand story, is likely to slow in 2012 as infrastructure spending ahead of the European football championship tails off

- As the macroeconomic headwinds originating from the eurozone have started affecting non-euro countries, we have amended our 2012 current account forecast for Poland We now expect the deficit to narrow to 4 2% of GDP in 2012, from an estimated 4 6% of GDP in 2011 Underlying this latest revision is our view that goods and services import growth will be contained as Poland enters a period of deep fiscal tightening

The price of this market report covers 4 quarterly reports on this sector. This quarterly report will be downloadable instantly as a PDF document, with the 3 remaining reports delivered at regular intervals throughout the year.