Who will promote Poland abroad?

The Polish Entrepreneurship Congress has called on the government to set up one agency specialised in promoting the Polish economy abroad.

‘Contrary to its successful economic performance and sound democratic institutions, Poland is perceived as a corrupted, bureaucratic country and without a market economy’ Dariusz Witkowski of the Confederation of Polish Employers, said. ‘Made in Poland is not a brand indicating good quality and competitiveness. Why is that when the reality in Poland is much better than its image abroad?’ he asked. Witkowski underlined that only 1 in 7 entrepreneurs who are looking to invest in Poland decide to do so, which means that Poland is attracting less than 15% of the FDI it potentially could. He explained that this situation is largely caused by the lack of a comprehensive strategy executed by one agency. ‘There are over 60 institutions working on promoting the Polish economy and spending over PLN 100 million per year, yet Poland is ranked at the 53rd position in terms of competitiveness according to the World Economic Forum and at 32nd position in terms of tourism competitiveness.’

Entrepreneurs believe these poor results are the effect of uncoordinated actions, therefore they are asking for one agency, predominantly financed by the government. However, businesspeople say they need to play a crucial role in developing and executing the promotion strategy, therefore they are also ready to contribute financially to it.

Ronald Rewald, Chairman of the Polish-American Chamber of Commerce, underlined that there are some excellent examples set by Germany and the UK how to promote a country’s economy abroad. Martin Oxley of the British-Polish Chamber of Commerce said that the UK earmarks over GBP 200 million per year for promotion but each pound sterling spent generates 6 pounds of revenue.

Jerzy Bartnik, president of the Polish Crafts Association, summed up what a coherent strategy should contain. ‘We should promote the Polish economy abroad, Polish businesses and Polish brands, we should promote Polish exports, FDIs in Poland and Polish investments abroad. And businesspeople should play a vital role in those activities’ he said. (SJ)

Polish Market

ECONOMIC MONITOR

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• Debate on the 2010 budget bill began in Poland in September. It was preceded by the adoption of amendments to the 2009 budget law and the release by the Central Statistical Office (GUS) of the GDP growth estimate for the second quarter of 2009. Poland is the only EU-27 country to register a positive GDP growth in the second quarter.
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• Research on innovation activity shows that the share of businesses which introduced product or process innovations – new or significantly improved products or processes - in 2006-2008 was lower than in the previous period; in industry the share of such businesses was 21.3% and in the service sector 15.6%.
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• On the Warsaw Stock Exchange, stock prices were very volatile in September. At the end of the month, the WIG-20 blue-chip index and the WIG broad-market index were higher than at the end of December 2008 by respectively 22.50 pct. points and 38.02 pct. points.
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• GUS, NBP: In July the balance on the current account was negative at EUR-565 million against EUR-972 million in July last year, which represented an improvement by EUR407 million.
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• At the end of August 2009 the registered unemployment rate (claimant count rate) was at the July level of 10.8%. Employment in the corporate sector was by 2.2% lower than in August 2008.
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• In the eight months to the end of August 2009 budget revenue amounted to PLN183.4 billion, compared with the PLN272.9 billion planned under the amended 2009 budget law and PLN303.0 billion planned initially.
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WEEKLY MARKET ANALYSIS

Economic growth slows to 1.7% in 2009
Poland’s GDP growth slowed in 2009 to 1.7% from 5.0% in 2008. The figure was in line with our expectations and slightly higher than the market consensus. In Q4 the growth rate reached 2.9%-3.2% and was much higher than in the previous three quarters.

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