– The inflow of foreign investment in the first half of the year was by 80 % higher than in relatively positive 2009 – said Slawomir Majman, President of the Polish Information and Foreign Investment Agency during a panel „Investment in Central and Eastern Europe: after the crisis”.
As long as the forecasts of further inflow of investment to Poland are pretty good, experts emphasize that our region cannot be any longer treated as a coherent whole. – The Situation in the Czech Republic and Slovakia is not bad. On the other hand, one can anticipate that the problems of Ukraine, Lithuania or Latvia are not likely to end this or next year – said Jacek Socha, Vice-president of PricewaterhouseCoopers.
Last year GDP growth was recorded only in Poland, but we should not forget that in the same time unemployment, budget deficits or public debt were on the rise in all the countries of the region. – In order to maintain the inflow of foreign investment, one needs to help investors, although many countries refrained from such projects due to budget reasons – said Rafał Baniak, Deputy Minister of Economy.
Analyzing the inflow of foreign investment to Poland, one can see much slower interest of companies in the eastern part of the country. – Eastern Poland has chances for development, provided that all five voivodeships would act together – said Krzysztof Hetman, Deputy Minister of Regional Development during a panel „Investment opportunities in Eastern Poland – barriers and chances for development”. – One should engage in system related projects involving many partners starting from local self-government units through universities to business – he summarized.
For the development of Eastern Poland, we dispose of the funds in the amount 2.27 billion euros until 2013. – We hope that we can avoid mistakes committed in Eastern Germany which had much more money at stake – said Prof. Krzysztof Rybiński from Warsaw School of Economics. In his opinion it is essential that the regions should be distinguishable from one another, and not copy their development strategies. Krzysztof Opawski, former minister of infrastructure, emphasized the importance of developing transport infrastructure – new roads and railway lines as necessary components for the development of voivodeships.
