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Poland the region`s leader
( 28 / March / 2008 )
Poland is maintaining its position as the leader in the ranking of Central European countries with the largest numbers of foreign investments. We’re only threatened by Rumania, whose only advantage is a cheap labour force.
The Czech Republic’s agency Czechinvest, the counterpart of the Polish Information and Foreign Investment Agency (PAIiIZ), has announced the results of its 2007 activities. The average value of the projects it handled was app. 14 million EUR, whereas in the case of PAIiIZ, it was 33 million EUR. It’s worth mentioning that the budgets of both agencies were disproportionate to the results achieved by each one - Czechinvest’s budget was more than four times greater than PAIiIZ’s.
PAIZ, just like its Czech rival, prioritises projects from the sectors of electronics, automotives and the chemical industry. Half way through last year, the Czech’s changed their basis for providing public aid. This can only now be expected by firms that transfer technology that’s less than two years old there.
According to Mr Marcin Kaszuba, a manger at Ernst&Young, we beat our southern rivals in the realms of the availability of personnel and our labour costs. In the second area Rumania is successfully competing with us, but due to the low numbers of qualified personnel, they’re unable to attract as large numbers of investors as Poland. The last set of complete figures was for 2006, which shows that 15 million EUR was then invested here, 9 million EUR in Rumania, 6 million EUR to the Czech Rep. and 2 million EUR in Slovakia. It also needs to be added that in our favour is the fact that Poland’s the region’s largest country.
The value of investments in Poland this year could once again reach a record. For the first time, we’ll see a noticeable increase in investors from outside the EU. We noticed an inflow of Chinese investments, particularly in electronics, domestic appliances and automotives. The Japanese and Indian investments will also continue to grow - Mr Kaszuba, believes. The first Indian firms appeared here in 2006, but it was only the entry of such firms as Infosys and HCL which can attract other firms.