(Adds finance minister comment)WARSAW, Sept 3 (Reuters) - Activity at Polish factories grewat its slowest rate in nearly two years in August, a businesssurvey showed on Monday, with the government declaring that theeconomic cycle may already have peaked.Output expanded at a muted pace and new orders from abroadslumped last month, the IHS Markit Poland ManufacturingPurchasing Managers' Index showed.The PMI fell to 51.4 in August from 52.9 in July, the lowestreading since October 2016. That was below the consensusforecast in a Reuters poll of analysts for a reading of 53.0,but still above the 50-point mark that separates expansion fromcontraction."August PMI data signals a slowdown in the Polish industrysector and may indicate that we have the peak of the economiccycle behind us," Finance Minister Teresa Czerwinska was quotedas saying in a statement emailed to Reuters. New export orders declined at the fastest rate since July2014 and the rate of employment growth eased to a nine-monthlow, survey compiler IHS Markit said.
Backlogs of work contracted and inventories of finishedgoods were accumulated for the first time in 19 months, whileprice pressures remained strong, IHS Markit said."Polish manufacturers reported the weakest overallimprovement in business conditions for nearly two years inAugust," said Trevor Balchin, Director at IHS Markit."That said, the manufacturing sector in Poland is still oncourse to stretch its current record run of growth to fouryears," he added.- Detailed PMI data are only available under licence fromMarkit and customers need to apply to Markit for a licence.To subscribe to the full data, click on the link below: For further information, please phone Markit on +44 20 72602454 or email economics@markit.com (Writing by Toby Chopra; additional reporting by Pawel Sobczak;editing by Larry King and David Stamp)
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