Purchasing power of Poles getting close to EU average

The purchasing power of Polish citizens reached 79 percent of the EU average in 2022, the head of a government-affiliated economic agency has said.

Buoyed by years of economic growth, Poland has been gradually catching up on its western European peers, and now appears to be closing in on parity.

"Poland at 79 percent of European average in GDP per capita, PPS (Purchasing Power Standard - PAP)," Piotr Arak, head of the Polish Economic Institute, wrote on Twitter on Thursday. "We're slowly catching up with Spain".

In Eurostat's flash purchasing power parity (PPP) and gross domestic product estimates for 2022, Poland was ranked ninth from the bottom and Spain tenth in terms of PPS.

"In 2022, gross domestic product (GDP) per capita expressed in purchasing power standards (PPS) ranged between 59 percent of the EU average in Bulgaria and 261 percent in Luxembourg," Eurostat wrote on its website on Thursday.

In terms of non-PPS-adjusted GDP per capita, Luxembourg and Ireland were ranked highest, with 161 percent and 134 percent of the EU average, respectively. Bulgaria, Slovakia and Greece occupied the opposite end of the spectrum as their GDP per capita was 41 percent, 33 percent and 32 percent lower than the EU average, respectively.