Past event

Poland's plan to escape the middle-income trap

This year's Christmas Business Mixer at the Polish Embassy in London had a substantive element to it; an overview of how investment support would change in 2018.

The annual event, organised by the embassy's Trade and Investment Promotion Department and the BPCC, is a chance to say 'thank you' to companies and entrepreneurs who've worked to support two-way UK-Polish economic relations. With the new law on Special Economic Zones coming close to fruition, it was felt that an overview of the likely changes to support mechanisms would be useful.

Jerzy Bartosik, head of the Trade and Investment Section, summed up the past year and the wide-ranging changes in the year ahead. These would include changing the way Poland promotes trade abroad, no longer through a diplomatic posting as at present, but a business office.

Michael Dembinski, the BPCC's chief advisor, set out the context for the changes, outlined by deputy premier and economic development minister Mateusz Morawiecki (who participants would learn later that evening had just been nominated prime minister). The so-called Morawiecki Plan was devised to ensure that Poland would not fall into the middle-income trap – no longer a low-wage economy but still not an innovative, high-value added economy.

Adam Małecki, deputy director of the Foreign Investment Department of PAIH, the Polish inward investment and trade promotion agency, gave an overview of what Poland can offer foreign investors, in a presentation drawing on the latest macroeconomic, demographic and educational indicators.

Lawyers Cezary Przygodzki and Michał Bernat from Dentons, compared the existing foreign investment support regime, based on 14 Special Economic Zones, to the new one, which is expected to come into force towards the end of the first quarter of 2018. The new system of incentives will treat the whole of Poland as one Special Economic Zone – but only for those investments that are considered to be bringing innovations or higher-value added jobs to Poland, or new jobs to those parts of Poland still touched by structural unemployment.

Alister Langdon associate director of Jones Lang LaSalle gave a region-by-region overview of Poland, looking at optimal locations for foreign investors looking to set up in the country. He went through the pluses and minuses of different Polish cities.

The formal part of the evening over, participants went downstairs for the networking mixer, which proved extremely successful. Business cards were still being exchanged over beers at a nearby pub, such was the desire to continue chatting about investment opportunities in Poland!

Look out for a more detailed assessment of Poland's new investment incentive scheme on the BPCC.