British Polish Chamber of Commerce

A great start to the year in Kraków, with the traditional New Year's mixer held at the Mercure Kraków Stare MIasto hotel - an excellent venue close to the city's main railway station. Guests were greeted by the event's sponsors - Radosław Włoszek, president of Kraków International Airport and Iwona Znamirowska from Aviva, who explained how the introduction of employee capital plans (PPK in Polish) was being received by Małopolska employers. Kraków Airport had an extremely good year in terms of passenger numbers, rising to 8.4m in 2019, up by over 1.6m from 2018.

Michael Dembinski, the BPCC's chief adviser gave a brief overview of the results of the chamber's HR Review survey. A printed top-line summary of the survey was available to guests.

There were plenty of focused conversations going on around the cocktail tables, covering topics of interest to local employers - from issues around recruitment and retention, the expansion of e-commerce, the impact of artificial intelligence on the labour market, e-ommerce and BIM.

The friendly atmosphere and exchange of business cards was testament to a good group of companies present at the mixer, and suggests that 2020 will bring plenty more BPCC events to Małopolska.