While the forint and the koruna were barely changed on Friday (the koruna was trading range-bound between EUR/CZK 25.72 and 25.78), the Polish zloty took back some previous losses and the EUR/PLN pair returned to 4.27.
As far as fresh regional PMI figures for August are concerned, these support our view that cyclical recovery both in Poland and the Czech Republic is under way. In Poland, the (6,9 GBP, 2,11%) PMI reached its highest level in 25 months and, maybe the most importantly, the sentiment improved even in the case of employment. Let us recall that GDP growth was almost exclusively driven by net exports in the second quarter while domestic demand (again) fell behind. Hence the improvement in employment is a promising sign for reaching a more balanced structure of economic growth in quarters ahead. In the Czech Republic, the overall PMI even scored 53.9 points, which is the strongest reading since June 2011. Both the koruna and the zloty draw support from encouraging PMIs; the koruna is seen at
EUR/CZK 25.69 while the zloty strengthened up to EUR/PLN 4.25. Meanwhile, August PMI in Hungary also improved to 51.7 points.
As for possible impact of Polish GDP figures released last Friday on this week’s NBP monetary policy meeting, we think that available data allow central bankers to stay calm regarding foreseeable inflationary threats. Therefore, we stick to our base scenario betting on stability of official interest rates by the end of this year and we anticipate that the NBP could start discussing subsequent interest rate hikes only in the second quarter 2014.