The fourth edition of Coface’s survey on payment experiences.

The fourth edition of Coface’s survey on payment experiences in Poland was carried out in December 2019 with 300 companies participating in the study. The payment survey investigated businesses’ payment behaviour, which mirrors both the short-term economic situation and the more structural business environment. In 2019, Poland’s GDP growth reached 4.1%, which was admittedly a slowdown after 5.1% recorded in 2018.Coface anticipates GDP growth in Poland to continue to slow, expected at 3.3% in 2020.A favourable macroeconomic environment has created supportive conditions for businesses in previous years. However, the extent of the COVID19 outbreak knock-on effects remains to be observed, notably on trade partners, and could further impact the economic perspective in Poland. Despite a further slowdown of GDP growth, 50% of companies expected their profitability to rise in the short-term (10% of companies expected their profitability to remain at the current level) in the survey conducted end 2019. At that time, an improvement in sales was expected in the textile-clothing, automotive, and energy sectors. Conversely, the pharmaceuticals, metals, and construction sectors forecasted lower sales in the coming months. According to the survey, 10 out of the 12 sectors anticipate that the amount of outstanding receivables were likely to decrease in the following months.

Since the textile-clothing and automotive sectors are among the ones that are expected to suffer most from the COVID19 spillover effects at a global level, with significant value chains disruptions as a lot of plants closed in China, epicentre of the international outbreak. Thus, the aforementioned positive perspective anticipated by companies in the survey at the end of last year could be somewhat less important if they had responded to the survey in the current context of a global health crisis