We are in the middle of the Christmas season and I am criss crossing the country thanking our members for all their support in 2008, preparing to celebrate christmas and looking forward with renewed vigour for 2009. Next week I hit the UK for a Christmas Roadshow before returning to Poland to join my family for Christmas. That is exciting.

December always was a busy month for the Chamber; this year sees an increase in activity. Uncertain economic times is when the chamber really comes into its own. We are staging our busiest pre-christmas programme ever and have designed a number of superb services to enable our member companies to network and grow their business in Poland and the UK in 2009.

We kicked off the pre- christmas season last week with a special breakfast briefing with the Minister of Finance who convinced delegates that Poland is in a better position than most to weather the economic storm ahead; on the same day we organised a networking reception in Warsaw with the very kind sponsorship of Provident Polska and the Britstol Hotel; on the same evening in Lodz we sponsored a gala dinner to mark the 1st Lodz EU regional economic Forum - the BPCC was very active at this event.

Today I am off to Lodz again for a breakfast with the Region’s authorities before going to look at a brand new BPCC BusinessPoint which is opening in the next days in the heart of the city - this project has been realised in partnership with DKM Real Estate. Back to Warsaw this afternoon for a St Andrew’s Day reception at the British Embassy before heding off to Wroclaw for an intenrational Christmas Reception in the famous City Hall. Another BPCC team led by Michal Dembinski is off to the UK for a range of events - a seminar on PPP with British Water and a number of Poland opportunity briefings - great opportunity.

The BPCC has an excelllent programe of opportunities for you to network and grow your business. I would fully reccommend you to contact the team in Warsaw to identify how they can help you grow your business. Thanks for all thos who continue to support us in these exciting times. We really want to support you!

Very pleased to participate recently in the press conference to launch the Polish National Sales Awards as the Honorary Patron. The guest of honour at the launch was his Excellency Ric Todd, the British Ambassador in Poland.

Very pleased to see that A4E is starting to launch a number of employment centres in areas of high, long-term employment in Poland. While unemployment is at an all time low in Poland and it runs at low single digit %’s in the cities, out in a numebr of the regions unemployment is still running at up to 30%. Under the brand “Work First” A4E is partnering local employment agencies to deliver focused employment services which are aimed at getting the long term unemployed in to work, via specialised employment integration centres. The first two centres will open in Szczecin and Zabrze. This is a superb intitiative and I am really pleased that A4E has turned its attention to getting this community back into work. Once these centres are up and running I think there will be significant scope to develop the centres as Poland embarks on re-skilling programmes and enterprise support programmes.