Poland's budget deficit is expected to reach zł.35.6 billion next year, Gazeta Wyborcza reported, citing an unreleased Finance Ministry draft  budget for 2013. This is only slightly more than the zł.35 billion planned for this year, despite the macroeconomic outlook for 2013 being much worse.

Revenues in 2013 are set at zł.299.2 billion, about 1.9 percent higher than this year’s levels. Planned tax revenues are zł.2 billion lower than in 2012, however. Expenditures are expected to reach zł.334.8 billion, a 1.9 percent increase over this year.

The projections, which the government is due to discuss later on Tuesday, appear quite optimistic when compared to market assessments.

“This change of macroeconomic assumptions means making them more realistic, but they still cannot be described as conservative in the context of the recent deterioration [of the] economic outlook,” Bank Zachodni WBK wrote in a report.

Still, the draft assumptions suggest that the state will not be able to reduce the deficit-to-GDP ratio to the extent it had hoped.

“Central budget deficit was set more or less at the same level as in 2012, which is suggesting that the general government deficit will not be cut to 2.2 percent of GDP as planned earlier,” BZ WBK wrote

“Still, under circumstances of a considerable deterioration of the economic climate in the whole of Europe we do not think that this [will] diminish the assessment of Polish fiscal policy,” it added.

The government has also altered its 2013 macroeconomic projections. GDP growth is estimated at 2.2 percent – much lower than the 2.9 percent contained in previous forecasts. The government anticipates inflation at 2.7 percent and an unemployment rate of 13 percent.

Currently, most analysts except GDP growth of 1.5 percent or lower in 2013.

Poland A.M.