WASHINGTON, July 23, 2015—The World Bank Group’s Board of Executive Directors today approved a €912.7 million (approximately $1 billion) Second Resilience and Growth Development Policy Loan (DPL2) for Poland to support Poland’s economic growth and resilience, leading to more dynamic job creation and shared prosperity.
This is the second in a series of two lending operations in Poland, structured around three pillars:
- Enhancing macroeconomic resilience by reducing the general government fiscal deficit and debt levels toward the medium-term objective and bolstering macro-prudential oversight;
- Strengthening labor market flexibility and employment promotion; and
- Improving private sector competitiveness and innovation.
“Poland’s economic growth has been impressive over the last two decades and the World Bank is pleased to be able to continue to support the Government’s reform program, which aims to strengthen public finances and financial sector resilience, create jobs and promote a more dynamic and innovative economy,” said Mamta Murthi, World Bank Country Director for Central Europe and the Baltic Countries. “We look forward to continuing our strong partnership, where we share international experiences to help inform the design of specific reforms, while also learning and sharing Poland’s experiences with other countries.”
The policy actions supported under DPL2 address the main challenges currently facing the Polish economy, including increasing resilience to future shocks while strengthening labor markets, improving the business environment, and promoting innovation. Ongoing reforms are critical to ensuring that the Polish economy remains competitive as it seeks to increase productivity and diversify into new product markets.
“The challenge for Poland is to sustain such impressive growth.” said Theo Thomas, Lead Economist and the Task Team Leader for the operation. “The reforms supported by these loans will help ensure that the economy remains competitive and flexible in the face of potential economic shocks. This will support the recovery in investment and employment to ensure that Poland’s prosperity continues to be widely shared.”
The World Bank supports Poland in these priority reform areas through policy lending which embeds technical advice for reform design as well as through a range of technical assistance and advisory support activities. Actions supported by DPL2 are aligned with the Bank’s 2013-2016 Country Partnership Strategy (CPS) for Poland. The Bank’s lending operations in Poland support economic reforms in the implementation phase, highlight reforms where Poland may be at the policy frontier, and enhance institutional capacity, including through the development of new legislation.
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