Poland’s industrial production in August grew at a pace of 0.5 percent year-on-year, down from the 5.2 percent growth in July and slower than the market consensus forecast of 1.9 percent.

The weakening of output growth was “broad based and was visible both in sections dependent on domestic demand and export-oriented,” Piotr Bujak, chief economist for Poland at Nordea Bank, said in an e-mailed statement.

Economists said the figures were further confirmation that Poland’s economy is experiencing a steep slowdown, as a number of recent macroeconomic figures have indicated. Poland’s economic growth for the second quarter of this year came in at 2.4 percent y/y, a sharp decrease from the 3.5 percent seen in the first quarter – despite an influx of tourists for the Euro 2012 tournament in Q2.

The Central Statistical Office, which released the industrial production figures last Wednesday, also released construction output figures. Here, the news was somewhat better, with output contracting a mere 5 percent y/y, rather than the 8 percent or so that analysts had expected. The sector had contracted by 8.8 percent y/y in July.

A detailed breakdown of the construction data showed a rebound in infrastructure construction, Mr Bujak said, “but in our view this is [a] temporary effect connected with finishing some road works suspended due to Euro 2012.”

After the release of the worse-than-expected industrial production data on Wednesday, economists warned that macroeconomic indicators will continue to show that Poland is experiencing a slowdown.

“We expect to see confirmation of negative tendencies also in retail sales data, which will fit into our scenario of clear economic slowdown,” said Maciej Reluga, chief economist at Bank Zachodni WBK, in an e-mail.