| POLSKA POLAND POLSKA POLAND POLSKA POLAND POLSKA POLAND POLSKA POLAND POLSKA | ||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||
|
TABLE OF CONTENTS NEWS
INVESTMENTS IN POLAND
PAIiIZ's INTERVIEW
DID YOU KNOW...?
FROM THE EDITOR Dear Readers, This week we provide information about a recently opened Samsung centre in Warsaw and a modern fish-processing plant in Koszalin, where 250 people found employment and there are probably more workplaces to be created. We also invite you to an exhibition devoted to the Polish Pavilion for the EXP0 2010 in Shanghai at the National Ethnographic Museum in Warsaw. To begin with, we present the excellent results of the OECD report on the GDP growth and general economic performance in Poland. Pleasant reading! PAIiIZ’s editorial team NEWS Poland second best in GDP growth - OECD reports Economic growth in Poland reached 6%, real GDP in the last two years has grown faster than in almost all other OECD countries - experts from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) inform in the 10th Economic Survey of Poland 2008.
Poland’s economy has performed well in the last two years. Andrew Dean, director of the OECD Economics Department, said that within the analyzed time only Slovakia managed to outpace Poland. According to experts intensive foreign investment inflow constituted one of the major driving forces behind the growth and there is a good chance for the trend to be maintained in the coming years. The report emphasises also that Poland may boast about a very high job-creation rate and a sharp decline in unemployment - from 18% in 2005 to 8.5% in 4Q 2007. (wnp.pl)
Exposition of the Polish Pavilion for the Shanghai World Expo 2010 opened this week. On Jun. 16, an exposition of the Polish Pavilion for the Shanghai World Expo 2010 at the National Ethnographic Museum (Kredytowa 1 St. in Warsaw) was opened.
The Pavilion’s project was prepared by a team of architects comprised of Wojciech Kakowski, Marcin Mostafa and Natalia Paszkowska. The exposition was organized by the Polish Information and Foreign Investment Agency, the Bureau of the Commissioner General of Polish Section Expo 2010 and the National Ethnographic Museum in Warsaw. The opening was chaired by Dr Paweł Wojciechowski, the PAIiIZ President and Dr Adam Czyżewski, the director of the National Ethnographic Museum in Warsaw. - The project is beautiful and innovative, it draws on tradition but contemporary elelments are effectively interwoven - said the PAIiIZ President.
The opening was graced with the presence of: Ewa Juńczyk-Ziomecka, Secretary of State in the Office of the President of the Republic of Poland; Waldemar D±browski, the former Minister of Culture; Ma Changlin, Economic Chancellor of the Embassy of the People's Republic of China in Warsaw; Li Chengyao, Commercial Attaché of the Embassy of the People's Republic of China in Warsaw and also Chinese journalists visiting Poland: Ms Du Jing, journalist of ‘Yunnan Daily’ and a member of the Chinese Writers Association; Tang Xiaoke, Editor in Chief of the Chinese Press Agency Sinhua; Li Xin, deputy director of an influential internet portal Renmin Qianlong; Liu Bo, ‘The Economic Observer’ journalist and Zhu Tong, journalist form a popular, nationwide tourist magazine ‘China Geography’. The exposition forms part of the Polish section’s EXPO preparations and will be opened for the public at the National Ethnographic Museum in Warsaw till Sept. 20, 2008. PAIiIZ website in Korean On Jun. 13, 2008 a Korean version of the Polish Information and Foreign Investment Agency website www.paiz.gov.pl was launched.
The Korean version of the website was launched due to the unflagging interest of Korean companies and media in the PAIiIZ’s offer. Among the Korean investors already present in Poland there are: Daewoo, LG Electronics, LG Philips and Samsung. We hope that the new Korean version will make it easier for the partners from western Asia to contact the agency and benefit from the information available on the website. The PAIiIZ website is also available in English, French, German, Japanese, Italian and Russian. “No-counter principle” The Ministry of Finance has plans to introduce the so called “one-counter principle” for entrepreneurs wishing to start economic activity in Poland. The streamlining of the registration process will be possible due to the amendment to the Act on Freedom of Economic Activity.
According to Adam Szejnfeld, the Secretary of State at the Ministry of Economy, the final details of the project are to be hammered out within days. The project is to form part of a legislative Entrepreneurship-Pack, comprised of 21 acts. In fact, the one-counter principle allowing all registration-connected formalities to be completed at a single counter, constitutes the first phase of the streamlining process. Mr Szejnfeld claims that the ultimate goal, at the moment with a working name of "no-counter principle”, would consist in a complex electronic registration procedure that would not require visiting any office. However, the fulcrum of the new e-procedure consists in a special IT platform - Central Economic Information Registry. According to www.wnp.pl, the creation of an IT system, compiling information from all Polish communes may even take up to two years. The second phase of the amendment to the Act on Freedom of Economic Activity, currently in progress, focuses on the legislative basis for the platform creation. (wnp.pl) INVESTMENTS IN POLAND Hewlett-Packard to extend Business Centre in Wrocław Around 800 specialists in finance, accounting and marketing may find employment in the Global Business Centre Hewlett-Packard (GCB HP).
GCB HP was created in 2005. The new project, to be realised between 2008-2011, gives the Wrocław-based centre a good chance to become the biggest HP division in Europe. At the moment the company hires around 1000 people. As a result of the planed development, staff demand at the centre may increase by 800. Investor has not yet revealed the project’s value. The cost of the HP centre construction three years ago amounted to around 50 million USD and the current project is estimated to approach a similar volume. The centre is to focus on the following fields: finance, and accounting, marketing, delivery chains and personal services. According to ‘Gazeta Wyborcza’ the Polish division is to be responsible for human resources management as well as product-equipment delivery. Also decision-making process concerning the company’s development directions and financial-market analyses are bound to be made in the Wrocław centre. Among other companies that chose to locate their centres in Wrocław there are: Google, Siemens, Opera, Credit Suisse and Wipro. According to Jerzy Kalinowski, partner in KPMG, the interest in Poland on the part of the BPO sector has been on the increase for some time now. Among the major factors attracting BPO investments are: good economic performance, education standards, widespread foreign language knowledge and strategic geographical location. (GW) Fish-processing plant in Koszalin to expand its activity Royal Greenland Seafood, the biggest and most modern fish-processing plant in Europe, has been operating in Koszalin for some time now. Thanks to the investment 250 workplaces had been created and the ultimate staff number at the plant is to reach 700.
Royal Greenland Seafood replaced the former Koszalin Agros plant and has been employing 250 people. The plant, however, seeks new personnel for production and quality sections as well as fork-lift truck operators and drivers. Among the plant’s flagship products there are: flounder, halibut and redfish fillets, fish fingers and also stuffed products. The most important markets are located in Scandinavia, Germany and the UK. Fleming Knudsen, the concern director, claims that the Koszalin-based plant constitutes a very important point in the long-term development strategy of the company. The Danish Royal Greenland ranks 5th among the world’s biggest seafood catch- and process-concerns. The Koszalin investment cost 20 million EUR and is now the most modern concern’s facility of the kind in the world. The Danish investor took interest in Koszalin in April 2005 thanks to PAIiIZ and the Investor Service Centre by the Marshal's Office of Zachodniopomorskie Voivodeship common initiative. The company manages production plants in 10 European, American and Asian countries with a total number of 2,5 thousand employees. (Polska Dziennik Bałtycki/UM Koszalin) Samsung to hire 100 engineers in a new centre in Warsaw Last week Samsung opened a new seat of the Centre for Mobile Technologies Development.
At the moment the centre hires nearly 100 employees specialised in mobile phones software testing and development. There are plans to double the staff number by the end of 2008. Graduates from technical colleges in Poland and from abroad interested and specialised in technologically advanced phones and mobile phone software creation may find interesting job offers at the Warsaw-based centre. The Centre for Mobile Technologies Development has been operating in Warsaw for almost a year. It is not only the major development institute in Europe but, together with the institutes in China and India, one of three Samsung research centres in the world - the Polish Press Agency (PAP) informs. In fact, the new facility is not a Samsung’s debut investment in Warsaw as the company’s TV software Samsung development centre has been operating in Warsaw for eight years. This centre works mainly on digital TV sets software, employing the DVB (Digital Video Broadcasting) standards. The company has plans for further projects in Poland, both in digital TV and mobile technology fields. Samsung Electronics is a leader in semiconductors production, digital media technology and telecommunications. According to PAP, the company hires 123 thousand people in 93 divisions located in 48 countries worldwide. (PAP) MACROECONOMIC POLAND
Source: www.nbp.pl PAIiIZ's INTERVIEW Interview with Cezary Grabarczyk - the Minister of Infrastructure What is the way to accelerate the realisation of the transport infrastructure creation programme?
Undoubtedly the present condition of the Polish infrastructure hampers the pace of development. I believe that the situation may be improved, yet optimism certainly is an indispensable factor that may help overcome not only legislative but also organisational defects. Public-Private Partnership (PPP), as a financing model for infrastructure proved successful in many foreign countries. What should be done to make the framework effective in Poland?
The Prime Minister has announced the change in attitude towards the model already in his first ever public address as the PM. Indispensable legislative initiatives, giving the projects within the PPP framework equal validity and legitimacy to the budget-based projects, were envisaged and now it is time the forecasts were put into practice. We have been holding talks with the motorway-construction licensees but the negotiations do not belong to the easiest as private partners focus mainly on the financial benefits. The fact will certainly be taken into account in the future investment projects where the public interests must be appropriately safeguarded. In the current negotiations, contracts do provide for the aspect. I believe that the structure of the present Act on PPP proves to be too inflexible for the PPP model to be applied. That is why the Ministry of Infrastructure devised an Act on Construction Works and Services Concessions. The Act was prepared with local administration entities and SMEs in mind, as a modern tool allowing cooperation and more efficient construction procedures concerning not only motorways but also roads and buildings construction (e.g. railway stations). What are the Ministry’s initiatives aiming at transport infrastructure improvement? I mean not only the EURO 2012-connected ones.
I wish the organisation of EURO 2012 was an additional driving force, for both the government and private companies, underlying the infrastructure changes in Poland. I do stress the word ‘additional’ and not the major force, as infrastructure improvement contributes to the overall economic development of the country. There is still a lot to be done to make up for the first years of the transformation in Poland when the stress was on the basic system reforms, among others the on the self-government organization reform. At that time not enough money was invested in infrastructure development. Now the situation has change and in the next five years the focus will be on the road and railway investments. The lack of funds should no longer be a problem here. The Ministry of Infrastructure intends to substantially accelerate the transport investment realization by means of several key legislative initiatives. In the first place, the amendment to the Act on Public Procurement Law which was devised in cooperation with the Ministry of Economy and Public Procurement Office. The amendment includes flexible regulations that will eliminate many administrative barriers and absurd difficulties. Secondly, an Act on Construction Works and Services Concessions has been prepared. In the so called “Expert - Act on Roads” the investment preparatory period will be reduced by half thanks to an efficient procedure compression. Works on the Act on Environment Protection amendment have been in progress. The efficient cooperation between the Ministry of the Environment and the Ministry of Infrastructure, as far as the environmental impact assessment is concerned, should be emphasized here. It is planned to set up The General Directorate for Environment Protection in order to simplify the issuing of environment-connected decisions. All this should also substantially improve our EURO 2012 preparations. DID YOU KNOW...? Polish automotive industry keeps its momentum This year Polish factories are to produce over 1 million vehicles. This is over 210 thousand more than last year - ‘Dziennik’ reports.
According to the latest data from the Polish Automotive Chamber (PIM), the Polish car and car-parts export value in 2007 accounted for 16 bln EUR, which is 2 bln EUR more than in 2006. The PIM experts argue that in 2008 the production growth rate is certain to stay at the same high level, if not accelerate. It is estimated that the value of automotive export may exceed 18 bln EUR. If the estimated 1 million vehicles are to be produced, lies mainly with the four major car producers in the country: the Żerań in Warsaw, where Chevrolet Aveo is put together; the Gliwice-based Opel producing Astra Sedan; the Poznań Volkswagen factory and the Tychy-based Fiat which is to expand its Fiat 500 production and is about to start putting together Ford Ka in cooperation with Ford. Yet the motor car and delivery truck producers should not bear the burden of the good automotive industry’s performance as ever greater part of export is comprised of car parts for foreign car manufacturers and buses assembled in Polish factories - ‘Dziennik’ informs. The Polish Press Agency reports that there are around 660 car producers active in Poland’s automotive industry, from among the total number over 320 are foreign investors and near 340 local. At the end of 2007 the number of people employed in the sector reached over 190 thousand. (Dz/PAP)  Editorial office: Polish Information and Foreign Investment Agency, 00-585 Warsaw, Bagatela Street 12 Economic Promotion Department, tel: (+48 22) 334 98 15, fax: (+48 22) 334 99 98, e-mail: redakcja@paiz.gov.pl | ||||||||||||||
|
