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Poland expecting more direct investment during the global crisis |
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Poland is one of the few places on the map of Europe, which offer investors a safe haven in the time of crisis. Data concerning GDP for the first quarter of 2009 not only proves that Poland managed to avoid recession, but shows that the Polish economy has been growing. Paradoxically, Poles were helped by the global economic crisis.
According to Eurostat, Poland is one of the only two European countries which recorded growth of the Gross Domestic Product – by 1.9% year on year. At the same time, the Slovak economy shrank by 5.4%, the Hungarian – by 4.7% and the Czech – by 3.4%.
Experts from the Polish Central Statistical Office claim it was the interior demand that exerted the greatest influence on the growth of GDP in Poland. The 38-million-strong nation forms a large, well-developed market where a significant amount of goods and services generated in Poland may be sold.
Poles have a right to regard themselves as relative winners in the crisis period. “Any country whose consumption is growing, whose financial system is not experiencing tremors and whose economy has been bolstered by a potent injection of €100 billion of structural funds can well regard itself as a winner. Those resources have been activated at the best possible moment to lubricate the economy.” – says Mr Waldemar Pawlak, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economy.
“Ernst & Young’s 2009 European attractiveness survey” fully confirms Poland’s economic attractiveness. Poland kept the excellent 2nd position in Europe, following the UK, in regard to the number of new jobs generated by foreign direct investments (FDI). Polish neighbours and competitors in the region recorded substantial job losses: the Czech Republic fell by 7 positions (from 3rd to 10th) and Slovakia saw 57% less new workplaces created last year in comparison to the same period in 2007. In terms of new investments, the number of projects realised in the country in 2008 placed Poland on the high 5th position (7th in the previous edition).
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Due to the country’s economic and political stability as well as public aid to investors, Poland has been constantly attracting projects from sectors generating the greatest value added, like the electronics, aviation and renewable energy sectors. The extremely dynamic development of modern BPO centres became, in the recent years, one of the major elements constituting the growing competitiveness of the Polish economy.
Poland is becoming an increasingly significant player on Europe’s economic map. This year, that almost 40-million-strong nation in the heart of Europe will exceed Sweden and Belgium in terms of the value of its national product.
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