Poland's industrial firms see rising debt despite production gains

Polish industrial output grew in March, with production sold to industry up 9.4% year‑on‑year, driven by food processing, mining and metal manufacturing. However, the sector’s financial health is worsening: total outstanding obligations in industrial processing reached 8.6 billion zł at the end of March, a 22.7% annual increase, according to BIG InfoMonitor and the BIG InfoMonitor credit register. On average each firm carries about 328 thousand zł of overdue debt, up from 250 thousand zł a year earlier.

The most indebted sub‑sectors are food processing (≈ 1.5 billion zł overdue) and metal product manufacturing (≈ 1.3 billion zł overdue), affecting over 5,000 companies. Around 28% of firms fear rising operating costs, with a quarter citing tax‑policy risk and a fifth pointing to geopolitical uncertainty. Additionally, 20% of production firms worry about shortages of qualified workers, which could hamper operations and growth plans.