POLISH INFOMATION AND FOREIGN INVESTMENT AGENCY
NEWSLETTER
July 23rd, 2009,
Number 132

TABLE OF CONTENTS

 

FROM THE EDITOR

Dear Readers,

This week saw a new IT Service Centre opened in £ód¼ by Fujitsu Siemens. You will find an account of the event in the News section. Moreover, we inform about several new foreign investments acquired by the Polish Special Economic Zones in £ód¼ and Kostrzyn. We write also about the data provided by a Randstadt survey which shows that Polish companies have been successfully performing in the recent months and do not tend to feel the world economic slowdown.

You will also find some data on industrial production in June and a report on Polish SEZs prepared by the Ministry of Economy.

Pleasant reading!

PAIiIZ’s editorial team

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NEWS

Randstadt: 26% of companies in Poland think there is no crisis in Poland

The latest survey by Randstadt Research Institute shows that 61% of companies in Poland have not been planning any changes in employment level and another 20% want to hire new workers. The worldwide economic crisis has not been influencing employment strategies of Polish employers. 26% of the surveyed declare not to feel the slowdown at all, what testifies to positive economic mood.

In the third edition of the report, Randstadt conducted its survey among 300 companies. 61% of the surveyed companies active in Poland have not been planning any changes in employment level and another 20% want to hire new workers.

A comparison of the latest survey with results of other polls conducted in September 2008 and February and May this year shows that the number of companies negatively or neutrally assessing the current economic situation in Poland decreased.

 In comparison with the poll from February this year, all indices included in the survey improved.  The number of companies declaring to increase employment rose by 4% and those which want to maintain the current level of employment did not change. In turn, the amount of firms declaring to cut jobs fell by 3% and by further 3% decreased the number of businesses hesitant about employment plans.

Another positive information consists in that almost three quarter of the surveyed (73%) have no intention  to lay off temporary workers. The data clearly shows that stable mood prevails among entrepreneurs who not only do not want to limit their business activity but are still interested in pursuing development plans.  Also as many as 91% of employers do not plan to reduce salaries.

In the commentary to the survey, experts from Randstadt observe that the surveyed evaluate economic development prospects as definitely better than in February 2009. From 9% to 20% rose the percentage of companies expecting the Polish economy to grow and by 50% (from 32% to 18%) fell the percentage of those who anticipate recession.

For the first time Randtstadt asked the surveyed how long in their opinion my we be experiencing slowdown in Poland.  Answers show that companies in Poland tend to perceive future in rather bright colours. While 26% think there is no crisis in the country,  the majority of the rest expects the slowdown to terminate in the course of the next 12 months (45% of the surveyed). (Randstadt)

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INVESTMENTS IN POLAND

New Fujitsu service centre in £ód¼

On July 21st, 2009 an official opening of the new Fujitsu IT Service Centre took place in £ód¼. The ceremony was attended by Fujitsu representatives from Germany, the UK and Portugal where similar centres have already been operating and S³awomir Majman - President of the Polish Information and Foreign Investment Agency. The project results to be the biggest foreign investment in £ód¼ so far this year.

The company has been present in £ód¼ since the beginning of 2009 and has currently been hiring 60 persons. In the course of the next three years Fujitsu plans to acquire 450 new employees with good knowledge of foreign languages.

The investing company is one of the biggest players in the computer sector in the world. The £ód¼-based division of Fujitsu Services will deal with client technical support. The investment, realized in one of the city’s priority fields i.e. Business Process Offshoring, fits perfectly in the £ód¼ cluster development strategy. The first investment project of the kind was realized in £ód¼ by Philips which created a finance-accountancy centre. Now in £ód¼ Fujitsu Services opens its second, after Portugal, service centre in Europe. 
- Clients will now be able to call our phone centre if they encounter any problems with their software - explains Honorata Broniarz from Fujitsu Services. - Our clients recruit from the sectors of finance and insurance but we work also with press agencies, airlines and stores.


Paul Tasker, Marek Cie¶lak, S³awomir Majman, W³odzimierz Tomaszewski, Benno Zollner
and Teresa Bia³ecka-Krawczyk (Source: Fujitsu Services)

The official opening of the Fujitsu Services new facility was attended by: Paul Tasker - Deputy President of Fujitsu responsible for business line Global Services Delivery, Benno Zollner - Deputy President of Fujitsu Technology Solutions GmbH, David Dean - Head of the Fujitsu Services Centre in £ód¼, S³awomir Majman - President of the Polish Information and Foreign Investment Agency, W³odzimierz Tomaszewski - Deputy President of the city of £ód¼ and Marek Cie¶lak - President of the £ód¼ Special Economic Zone.

Efforts to attract the investment to £ód¼, supported by PAIiIZ and the £ód¼ SEZ, started in October 2007. Dave Deane Head of the £ód¼-based Fujitsu facility said the city is a perfect destination for  such projects. The city not only offers attractive terms for pursuing business activity but gives Fujitsu the possibility to provide its services on a parallel basis with the activities conducted in Lisbon.

Fujitsu’s decision makes us happy and gives us hope that other companies from the sector will be more eager to invest in £ód¼. Our city becomes a valley of business because we offer highly-qualified human resources i.e. a thing which does predispose the city to host businesses providing high-quality services - said President Tomaszewski.

Fujitsu has already started recruiting employees for the centre which will provide services to clients from the Central and Eastern Europe and from Scandinavia. Round 520 people is bound to find job in the centre. The company plans to introduce shiftwork in order to be able to provide twenty-four-hour service. During the recruitment process the greatest focus is placed on the knowledge of foreign languages, mainly German, Czech, Danish and on expert computer and Internet skills.

Today consultants from the centre are able to help solve technical problems connected with computer applications, equipment and software. (£ód¼ City Council, PAP)

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ICT Poland develops its project in Kostrzyn upon Oder

ICT Poland develops its investment in Kostrzyn-S³ubice Special Economic Zone. The company began constructing a logistic centre in Kostrzyn upon Oder.

The official foundation stone laying ceremony was attended by members of the ICT Poland
management  board and representatives of the region of Lubuskie.

The ICT Poland production complex in Kostrzyn is one of the most modern hygienic tissue paper production and processing plants. The factory is fully automated, computer-managed and has been using the world biggest paper machine which may process 5.4 m wide paper straps.

The company emphasizes that the location in Kostrzyn-S³ubice SEZ enables them to sell their products both in Poland and also in Germany.

There are 64 companies which have currently been operating in the K-S SEZ. Further permits have been prepared. The Zone was set up in 1997 and has now three sub zones located in Lubuskie, Zachodnie Pomorze and Wielkopolska. (Gazeta Lubuska, K-S SEZ)

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MACROECONOMIC POLAND

  • Industrial production in June

    Industrial production output in Poland in June rose by 4.3% y-o-y  and by 6.2% against data from May this year. - informs the Central Statistical Office.


    In the same period construction-assembly output grew by 0.6% y-o-y and by 16.2% in comparison to the previous month. In May the output rose by 0.3% y-o-y.


    Ten economists, included in the survey conducted by ISB, forecast industrial production would fall by 6.9% y-o-y. Their prognoses varied considerably from 11.2% to 2. 2%, with the average hovering at 6.89%. According to analysts from the Ministry of Economy, falls in sold production output have recently been smaller. The tendency is expected to further slow down in the third quarter of the year. Moreover, Ministry’s experts do not rule out a slight increase in sales in the industry sector in the last quarter of 2009. (ISB, Ministry of Economy)

  • Exchange rates (as of 23.07.2009):

Buy

Sell

USD

2.9758

3.0360

EUR

4.2223

4.3077


Source: www.nbp.pl

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FROM THE REGIONS

New investor in the £ód¼ Special Economic Zone

Logistics Services, a company with Polish capital, will construct a modern logistic centre in S³upca (Wielkopolska). The modern facility will comprise of a warehouse complex, office and engineering space and a transport base.

The company will focus on logistic operations including: storage logistics, transport services (the company will make use of its own lorries and trucks), domestic and abroad car, ship and plane dispatch services. The company declared to invest 67.7 mln PLN and to generate at least 226 new workplaces.

Logistics Services is the 12th company which opted to realize its project in the £ód¼ Special Economic Zone this year. The companies will jointly invest round 400 mln PLN and are bound to create near 1000 jobs.

The £ód¼ Special Economic Zone was established in 1997. At the moment its area measures 1162ha. The Zone consists of 41 sub zones situated in three different regions i.e. the region of £ód¼, Wielkopolska and Mazowsze. To date 146 companies were granted business activity permissions. The joint value of investment outlays incurred in the zone accounts for round 8 bln PLN and the declared number of new jobs reaches almost 20,000. (£ód¼ SEZ)

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101st investor in the Warmia-Mazury SEZ

Panto Poland Engineering, a Polish-Italian company, was granted a business activity permission to operate in the Warmia-Mazury SEZ. It is the 101st permission issued by the SEZ. Now the company will start producing construction prefabricated units in the Szczytno sub zone of the £ód¼ SEZ.

On July 15th, 2009 in Szczytno the President of the Warmia-Mazury SEZ - Wojciech Goljat officially handed in the permission. Grzegorz Kubicki - President of Cetco Poland, the first company which invested in the SEZ 10 year ago and has still been preset in the Zone, also attended the ceremony.

Beside other presidents of companies operating in Szczytno and Mr±gowo among the guests there were also: Agata Górska - Szczytno’s mayor and Agata Popielarz-Dzielińska - representative of the Szczytno county. The Szczytno sub zone covers an area of 42.4ha out of which 14.5ha are ready to be developed by investors.

There have been currently 10 companies operating in the zone  which have been employing over 500 people. Two more companies possess valid business permits. The amount of outlays invested by all the companies in the sub zone Szczytno exceeded 90 mln PLN i.e. twice the amount of the sums which were initially declared by the investors. (WM SEZ)

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Half a billion EUR for Polish regional airports

The European Commission has backed a plan concerning the development of ten Polish regional airports.

The financial resources were allocated both to the already existing regional airports situated in the vicinity of Poznań, Rzeszów, Kraków, £ód¼, Bydgoszcz and to airports which are planned to be build in the future in Lublin, Modlin, Olsztyn-Szymbory, Zegrze Pomorskie and in the region of Podlasie. While all the small airports are eligible to 100% reimbursement of construction costs, medium-sized ports like the one in Poznań or Kraków may receive the maximum reimbursement of  76% of the total investment outlays.
 
The financial aid i.e. 192 bln EUR comes from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). The programme envisages, among other things, construction of new terminals and modernization of landing strips. The funds will be distributed in the form of subsidies, land/equipment transfers and capital. The European Commission recognized the financial aid granted to the airports as compliant with the provisions which determine the common EU market. (PAP)

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ANALYSES AND REPORTS

Ministry of Economy: development of Polish SEZ

The total area of Polish special economic zones as of the end of 2008 accounted for 11.8 thousand ha. The number of persons hired in companies operating in the SEZs exceeded 200 thousand. The report on Polish SEZ - prepared by the Ministry of Economy was accepted by the Council of Ministers on July 14th, 2009.

The report presents the current state of grounds’ development on the areas included in the SEZs as of December 31st, 2008.  Areas included in the zones are divided into private and public. According to the report 88% of private grounds, which constituted round 25% of the grounds included in SEZs, is developed. As for public areas the percentage of developed grounds nears 60%. New jobs generated on private grounds constitute 25% (i.e. 38.4 thousand ) of all the new workplaces generated in the zones. Moreover, thanks to the inclusion of private grounds with the already existing there companies, 54 thousand jobs could be maintained.

The report claims that there still are 3.8 thousand ha available for development. There is a number of attractive and well-situated investment lots with fully developed infrastructure which at the same time may in some places encounter difficulties for smooth development.

As of the end of May 2009 the joint area of the zones accounted for 12.43 thousand ha. what, when taken into account the 20 thousand ha limit determined in the amendment from May 30th, 2009, translates into over 7.5 thousand ha which are available for further investment development. According to the Ministry of Economy there is no need to exclude lots which are generally not fund to be attractive, especially that in some places communes have already incurred some expenses to develop infrastructure in the lots. Another audit is expected when the overall area of the zones will near 19thousand ha. (Ministry of Economy)

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DID YOU KNOW...?

Polish software to be used by NASA

Thanks to the new software with a working name RODM (Rover and Orbiter Delta Mars), scientists will now be able to analyze even very small areas on Mars. The author of the application, Jan Kotlarz, works for the Polish division of Mars Society and the University of Warsaw.

In several week’s time NASA will introduce the RODM software to conduct analyses of Mars. RODM does quick and accurate calculations what will allow the scientists to investigate even very small objects.

First, the University in Bern receives photos taken by the American space-probe Mars Reconnaisance Orbiter (MRO). Then the software creates a visualization and conducts a number of accurate calculations. The so called Inca City situated on the southern Mars hemisphere will be the first object which is to be analyzed by the Polish software.

Thanks to mathematical analysis it is possible to verify different hypotheses concerning the past of a given object. It will be possible to corroborate if a given ground was shaped by water. The software will finally form part of the Bern’s University computer network and will primarily be used by scientist working at the Institute of Palaeontology and people from ESA and NASA. (wnp.pl)

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