The country's unadjusted gross domestic product advanced by 1.4% in the third quarter of this year from the same quarter of 2011, well below estimates of 1.8% in a Bloomberg poll of analysts.
Figures from Warsaw's Central Statistics Office showed seasonally adjusted GDP up 1.9% year-on-year.
The slowdown was due to the "significant weakness" in total consumption expenditure and the decline of investment, the statistics office said in a statement.
The Polish economy was the only one in Central and Eastern Europe not to succumb to the fallout from the financial crisis, posting growth in 2009 when others in the region fell into deep recessions, but analysts have warned that the eurozone crisis combined with weakening domestic demand might cut short the economy’s good run.
"The biggest positive contribution to the growth figure came from net exports (the effect of imports decreasing more quickly than exports)," Katarzyna Rzentarzewska, Erste Bank analyst, said after the release of the data.
Industry was 0.9% higher in the third quarter compared with the same period a year ago, while construction fell 5.8%. Transportation and storage jumped by 9.7%, while finance and insurance increased by 3%.
The year-on-year unadjusted figure was the lowest growth figure since the second quarter of 2009, William Jackson, emerging markets economist at Capital Economics, noted.
Jackson expects the Polish economy to grow just 1% next year.
DOMESTIC HEADWINDS
"With exports to the eurozone worth some 20% of GDP, the deepening recession in the single currency zone will cause exports to become a drag on growth," he said.
"But domestic headwinds are building too," he added, noting financial troubles in the construction sector and the "increasingly strained" balance sheets of households. "Real wages are falling, credit conditions are tightening and, whereas previously households had run down their savings to fund consumption, the household savings rate now stands at a record low," he said.
"As such, consumer spending is hitting its limits and may even start contracting in the coming months and quarters."
Erste Bank's Rzentarzewska is even more pessimistic on growth, saying that it may even fall to zero.
"Domestic demand is weak – both individual consumption and investment have been dropping recently and there is little space for improvement, as the labour market has stagnated. The domestic market will pull the economy down," she said.
The Polish central bank will decide next week on interest rates and analysts see the possibility of a deeper cut, with more members of the Monetary Policy Committee voting for a 50 basis points decrease instead of the expected 25 bps.
"Although we stick to our expectation that the NBP will deliver a 25bp rate cut next week, the chance that it will deliver a larger (50bp) cut is now 50/50," said Danske Bank's Stanislava Pravdova.
"We actually think that a more aggressive rate cut next week would be appropriate given the sharp slowdown of the economy."