July–August 2014vol. 7 no. 5(43)

Price: 20 zł

PEP CEO wins Leadership Award at CEE Energy Awards

Politics:Wroclaw Global Forum attracts 450 diplomats

Equities:Ukrainian stocks up 40-50%

FDI:Enercap raises $54 million for energy investments

Zbigniew Prokopowicz distinguished for outstanding achievements in the Polish energy sector, leadership in renewable energy, and strategy to build a major energy utility

BizPoland Magazine and BiznesPolska are proud to host the 2nd FDI Poland Investor Awards Gala, an evening dedicated to recognizing top foreign companies operating in Poland.

With more than 200 international executive guests from more than 25 countries expected, the awards gala will be preceded by a half-day of discussion panels covering key issues and practical experiences related to direct investment in Poland.

Poland has emerged as a world-leader for inward Foreign Direct Invest-ment (FDI), and continues to attract top global investors, from a wide range of sectors including car and white-goods manufacturing, avia-tion, business services, energy, retail, and pharmaceuticals.

Poland’s top international direct investors will be presented with awards of acknowledgment – by an independent Jury – for their economic commitment to the Polish economy, judged by size of investment, employment levels and strategic importance.

This invitation-only event will attract top international executives in charge of investment decisions related to Poland, with support from more than 15 international Chambers of Commerce, representing a broad mix of top executives from amongst Poland’s largest and most economically-important foreign investors.

Chambers of Commerce that are invited include: Britain, USA, Canada, France, Spain, Portugal, Holland, Italy, Ireland, Germany, Aus-tria, Switzerland, Scandinavia, Czech, Australia, Japan, Korea, China, and Brazil.

www.FDIPolandAwards.plTime: 18:30-24:00 | Attendees: 200+ | Dress Code: Black Tie (formal attire)

FDI Poland Investor Awards16 October 2014

Hotel Intercontinental, Warsaw

Cover Story4 PEP wins Leadership Award at CEE Energy Awards

6 CEE Energy Awards distinguishes leaders in 16 categories

Energy News10 Polish firm establishing module plant using Meyer Burger’s

‘SmartWire’ technology

10 ERG Renew enters Poland

Politics12 Wrocław Global Forum 2014 attracts 450 diplomats

Equities News16 Ukraine agricultural stocks advance on closer Europe ties

17 PKO BP bank on its real estate unit, intra-group reshuffling and Nordea synergies

18 Eurocash buys ‘Inmedio’ convenience stores, signs franchise deal to develop ‘1minute’ stores

Real Estate19 New buyers moving into Cosmopolitan Tower

BPO/Shared Services20 5th ABSL Conference in Poznań

22 ASPIRE Conference in Kraków

FDI Investment News23 Dubai Silicon Oasis signs MoU with Polish Information

Agency PAIZ

24 Fiat Powertrain Technologies Poland gets EU funding

Cities News (28) Gdańsk/Gdynia/Sopot (29) Szczecin (30) Łódź (31) Poznań (32)

Katowice (33) Kraków (34) Rzeszów

Chambers of Commerce News (35) Korea; Canada (36) US (AmCham) (37) Kuwait; Netherlands;

Portugal (38) Switzerland; Emirates; Austria (39) France; Scandinavia (40) Italy

Events41 Perspectives for the Eastern Poland Macro-region

41 6th Congress of Women

42 Poland Specialty Foods and Beverages Expo (PFEX)

Table of Contents

Details at subs@bizpoland.pl or call +48-22-831-7062

July–August 2014vol. 7 no. 5(43)

Published by: BiznesPolska sp.z o.o.ul. Długa 44/50, bud. D, lok 704, 00-241 Warszawatel.: 022 831 7062General Manager and Editor:Thom Barnhardt (tb@bizpoland.pl)Publisher: Craig Smith (cs@bizpoland.pl)Editorial staff and writers:Leon Paczyński, Monika TutakResearch team coordinator:Magda AdamczykAdvertising Sales: Wiktor Gliński (wglinski@biznespolska.pl)tel.: 022 831 7062Graphic Design: Sławek Parfianowiczsparfianowicz.wordpress.com

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www.bizpoland.plCover Story

The CEE Energy Awards Gala & Summit, held in late May, at InterContinental Hotel in Warsaw, attracted more than 150 executives to celebrate the contribution of companies, projects, and individuals to energy inde-pendence and market devel-opment in Central Eastern Europe.

The esteemed 2014 CEE Energy Leadership Award was presented to Mr. Zbigniew Prokopowicz, CEO of PEP S.A., in

recognition of his outstanding achieve-ments in the Polish energy sector, his lead-ership in renewable energy, and strategy to build a major utility across the full electric-ity value chain.

Prokopowicz has positioned the inte-grated PEP/Polenergia as an integrated utility with a strategic focus on renewable generation, energy/gas infrastructure and distribution, and energy sales/trading. PEP/Polenergia has become a major player in the energy sector, with a pipeline of on-shore and off-shore wind projects, power generation plants (both CHP and coal-fired), and plans for a private German-Poland gas interconnector project.

Prokopowicz is Vice President of Polenergia Holding S.a.r.l. and Vice President of Polenergia SA, both positions

he has held since January 2013. From 2004 to 2008 he held the position of Chairman of the Supervisory Board of PEP S.A. (Polish Energy Partners). He has been CEO of PEP for nearly 6 years (since July 2008), guiding PEP through multiple renewables projects, public and private fund raisings of debt and equity, and its most-recent transformative strategic partnership with Kulczyk Holdings.

He graduated in economics from the University of Paris IX Dauphine and an MBA from the Institut d’ Etudes Politiques in Paris. Zbigniew Prokopowicz managed com-panies in various industries, including food, paper, packaging and energy. Before joining PEP, he was CEO of Mondi Packaging UK and Ireland and a member of the Executive Committee of Mondi Europe. n

PEP wins Leadership Award at CEE Energy Awards

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www.bizpoland.pl Cover Story

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Exploration Company of the YearWinner: San Leon Energy

San Leon’s petroleum exploration activity is focused on Poland, Morocco, Albania and Ireland. San Leon entered Poland in 2009 via Gold Point Energy acquisition and won major high potential shale gas conces-sions in the Baltic Basin. A farm in agree-ment was signed with Talisman one year later. The acquistion of Aurelian Oil&Gas in 2013 created a significant opportunity to realise substantial growth, accross both conventional and unconventional assets. Recent activities in Poland include:– executed successful hydraulic fracture

in Lewino 1G2 and Rogity 1 wells; – signed MOU with Halliburton to de-

velop the unconvetional gas potential in Wschowa, Góra, Rawicz concessions;

– performed three Diagnostic Fracture Injection Tests in 2 Carbomiferous tight gas intervals in Sieciny 1 well;

– signed letter of intent with Baker Hughes Poland to bring Siekierki gas field into production;

– Signed Term Sheet agreement with TransAtlantic Petroleum Ltd to farm in the selected concessions in Permian/SW Carboniferous Basin in Poland.

Top Energy Producer of the YearWinner: Lubelski Węgiel “Bogdanka” S.A.Lubelski Węgiel “Bogdanka” S.A. is one of the leading manufacturers in the hard coal

market in Poland. Coal sold by the com-pany is used mainly for the generation of electric and thermal energy as well as for cement production. Customers are mainly industrial companies, first of all those in the power generation industry and located in east and northeast Poland. The Group anticipates that as a result of the imple-mentation of intended projects by the com-pany (availability of the new coal resources and commencement of output in Stefanów panel) it will be possible to increase the share of LW Bogdanka in hard coal market in Poland up to 12% in the year 2014.

Top Renewables Deal of the YearWinner: PGE, Energa purchase of wind assets for $320 million

In February 2013, PGE SA, Poland’s largest power producer, and domestic peer Energa SA agreed to buy wind assets from Dong Energy A/S for 1 billion zloty, as part of a strategy to replace aging coal plants with cleaner energy. PGE acquired 60.5 mega-watts of operating assets and 555 mega-watts under development. Energa got a 51-megawatt wind farm and 220 mega-watts of planned facilities.

Wind Energy Company of the YearWinner: PEP S.A./Polenergia

Polish Energy Partners is one of the lead-ers of energy projects implemented on the basis of renewable energy sources. The Company’s field of expertise is the devel-opment, implementation and operation of projects related to production of electricity and heat, as well as fuels. The facilities the company operates produce over 8% of the renewable energy obtained from wind and biomass in Poland.

The Company offers services in the fol-lowing energy marke t segments:• outsourcing of industrial energy,

including operator services, production and sales of heat and electricity.

• development, operation and sales of wind farms, including off-shore wind development.

• plans to develop the first private grid con-nection between Germany and PolandPolish Energy Partners S.A. was listed

on the Warsaw Stock Exchange on May 13, 2005. In September 2012, Polenergia (ma-jority owned by Kulczyk) announced its in-tention to buy 60%+ of PEP and merge with Polenegia.

Cover Story

CEE Energy Awards distinguishes leaders in 16 categories:

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Biogas Company of the YearWinner: Volta Europe BGS

Volta Europe BGS has proven itself as a leader in the Polish biogas market in 2013 and 2014 by commencing construction of a 1,89 MW biogas station. Despite market instability resulting from continued delays with Polish legislation and the temporary devaluation of the Polish certificate sys-tem, Volta Europe BGS showed a strong ex-ample with decisive action and significant capital investments. Volta Europe BGS is now successfully financing its investments and now plans to commence construc-tion of its next investments in the Polish market.

Solar Energy Company of the YearWinner: Smart Energy Group – Romania

SEG is a leading group of companies in South-East Europe and its activities cover

the whole value chain in Renewable energy business. SEG has a portfolio of opera-tional PV power plants with approximate capacity of 40 MW in three countries: Bulgaria, Greece, Romania. SEG’s EPC business unit has delivered Turn-key EPC and successfully connected to the grid more than 83 PV Power Plants with ap-prox. capacity of 60MW in the three above-mentioned countries, from 70kW size up to 5MW PV Parks. SEG’s Gross Electricity Production Revenue over the next 25 years based on the Power Purchase Agreements is estimated at Euro 370 Million. SEG’s Development Department has a portfolio of approx. 150MW PV power plants under development in South-East Europe and in Turkey.

Energy Service Provider – Wind and other RenewablesWinner: Windhunter

A leader in Poland’s wind-measurement sector, Windhunter handles measurement projects in a comprehensive manner — from the selection of sites, the installa-tion of masts, legal and formal procedures, production, construction and sales of mea-surement systems to data support, ser-vicing and bankble expert wind resource evaluations. The company has a large mar-ket share of wind farms in Poland. Today, windhunter consists of over 70 people forming a tightly knit and professional team.

Energy Service Provider – Coal, Oil&GasWinner: Baltic CeramicsBaltic Ceramics Investments SA is the first factory in the EU to produce ceramic prop-pants. Ceramic proppants are necessary in the process of exploration and produc-tion of hydrocarbons from conventional

and unconventional, including gas and oil shale. Baltic Ceramics Investments SA is part of a vertically integrated industrial group IndygoTech Minerals SA, which is consistently commercializing cutting-edge technologies for ceramic improving energy efficiency. The Group also includes compa-nies LZMO SA , and Industry Technologies SA. In late May 2014, Baltic Ceramics fi-nalized a successful IPO on the Warsaw Stock Exchange, raising capital to fund de-velopment of a new factory.

Energy Service Provider – IT, Engineering and ConstructionWinner: Alstom

Alstom employs about 3,200 people in power generation, grid, and transport sectors in Poland. It has state-of-the-art manufactur-ing base, including in Elbląg (turbine fac-tory and cast steel and cast iron foundries); in Wrocław (generator factory – Alstom’s European excellence centre for turbogen-erators); in Chorzów (rolling stock factory); in Łódź and in Warsaw (EPC project imple-mentation centres); in Katowice (an organ-isation offering services and equipment for grids). Starting from the 1990s, Alstom has been the leader on the Polish market of coal EPC projects and the Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) for more than 95% of the installed fleet. Over 320 medium- and large-sized steam and gas turbines installed in power plants all over the world were manu-factured at Alstom Power factories in Poland. Alstom Grid Poland is the leading supplier of SF6 gas insulated switchgears (GIS), imple-menting key projects for the Polish power industry.

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Professional Services Company of the Year – LegalWinner: SSW Spaczyński, Szczepaniak i Wspólnicy

SSW Law Firm advises its Clients on mat-ters concerning the energy sector as well as geological and mining issues connected with natural resources and on issues con-cerning the traditional energy sector and renewable energy sources.

SSW is providing legal advice to oil & gas and mining entities, concerning all aspects of their operations. SSW’s experts represent entrepreneurs in concession pro-ceedings, environmental proceedings, in-vestment proceedings, JV and M&A trans-actions, public procurement procedures. Moreover, SSW provides complex advisory for power plant operators as regards waste to energy and end-of-waste undertakings.

SSW’s lawyers have been involved in Poland’s leading natural resources and energy projects. They have advised indus-try leaders during competitive concession proceedings before the Polish authori-ties, in relation to most natural resources available in Poland, such as hydrocarbons, metals, black coal, lignite, potash and do-lomites. SSW advises the trade associa-tions and industry members on the legis-lative process regarding amendment of the Geological and Mining Act and the new Hydrocarbons Act.

Professional Services Company of the Year – Advisory or RecruitmentWinner: TPA Horwath

TPA Horwath Poland’s main industry fo-cus is on Energy and Real Estate, providing integrated solutions both to conventional and renewable power market, including M&A and transaction support, tax risk management, tax planning, corporate ac-counting, business valuations and finan-cial modelling. Among our clients are such a companies as: Tauron, Renergie, Green Power Poland, Gamesa, Enea, Saxovent, PGE. We also advised Polish Wind Energy Association in negotiation of Polish renew-able resources act with the government of Poland. Our advise consisted mainly in developing of financial impact assessment model for the RES act draft.

TPA Horwath CEE provides high qual-ity services to energy utilities, investors and developers accross 11 countries. Our experience results from long list of proj-ects realized for the most significant mar-ket players such as EDF, E.ON, Renergie, CEZ, SunPower, Verbund, Vestas, Nordex, Hareon, PNE WIND and MVV Energie Group.

Professional Services Company of the Year – Banking & FinanceWinner: Societe Generale Corporate and Investment BankingSociete Generale Corporate & Investment Banking Poland (SG CIB Poland) belongs to Societe Generale group, which has been

present in Poland since 1976. Currently it employs over 3,000 persons in corporate and investment banking (SG CIB Poland), retail banking (Eurobank) and leasing (ALD Automotive and SG Equipment Leasing). SG CIB Poland is one of the foreign banks with the longest history in Poland. The bank started its operational activity in 1992 and soon became a leading partner for corpo-rate customers, financial institutions and sovereign entities. It provides services via the branch in Warsaw and regional offices in Gdansk, Katowice, Krakow, Poznan and Wroclaw. The team of 200 professionals of SG CIB Poland offers tailor-made finan-cial solutions, building on its international expertise in Investment Banking, Global Finance and Global Markets.

Financing Deal of the YearWinner: EBRD - loan of €68 million to 120MW Pawlowo wind farm

The EBRD is considering providing a long-term loan of up to €68 million equivalent to finance the construction and opera-tion of a 120MW greenfield Pawlowo wind farm in north-west Poland. The project is being developed in two phases: Phase I of 79.5MW located in the municipality of Gołańcz was completed in 2013 and Phase II of 40.5MW located in the municipality of Budzyń to become operational in 2015.

The project has the potential to demon-strate a successfully operating large scale wind power generation facility, confirming the success story of Margonin wind farm also

Cover Story

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developed by EDPR and commissioned in 2010, and, as such, attract other investors and financiers to the Polish renewable energy sec-tor. The Project is expected to be one of the first projects in Poland to be financed during the continuing regulatory uncertainty period and as such will demonstrate that limited-recourse financing of renewable energy proj-ects, especially merchant ones, is still achiev-able in Poland. The project is being developed by EDP Renewables Polska Sp. z o.o., which is the Polish subsidiary of EDP Renewables EU, the European holding of EDP Renováveis, S.A. EDPR is the world’s third largest wind energy producer with installed capacity of 8GW across 11 countries at the end of 2012 and a pipeline of 158MW under construction and 18,648MW under development.

Top Energy Trader of the YearWinner: AXPO Polska Sp. z o.o.Axpo is a leader in innovative energy risk management and integrated offtake/supply solutions throughout Europe. For more than 20 years, Axpo has employed its distinctive, non-traditional risk management methodol-ogy to help energy consumers and produc-ers optimize their energy risk exposure and take charge of their portfolio. With roots in Switzerland, the firm operates globally from over 20 countries and has established pres-ence throughout Europe, from Madrid to Helsinki and from London to Istanb ul. In

2013, Axpo has been voted by its clients as the best energy company in Eastern Europe. Axpo in Poland: In Poland, we are the largest independent off-taker of wind energy, with a substantially significant portfolio of power plants under management.

Energy Project of the YearWinner: Lithuanian floating LNG Terminal Project - KlaipediaThe terminal transfers gas products from railway tanks to ships; it is supplied to

Lithuania from Russian, Belorussian, and other refineries. In addition, the terminal - in a reverse mode - can supply Lithuania with imported oil products that are carried to Klaipėda Seaport by ships. In 2010, the construction of LNG terminal officially started and will be operational at the end of the year 2014.

“Alternative sources of gas supply will be created, and it will end Lithuania’s de-pendency on one external gas supplier. This project is crucial to the development of national and regional gas market; the country will be able to take part in interna-tional gas markets”, - says Rokas Masiulis, General Manager of SC “Klaipėdos Nafta”.

SC “Klaipėdos Nafta” which implements the project of the LNG terminal has se-lected floating liquified gas storage with regasification unit (FSRU). Ship-storage with regasification unit for the terminal is designed by South Korean company “Hyundai Heavy Industries Co., Ltd“. It was decided to carry gas with a special vessel because this technological solution can be implemented most quickly. It is also more effective economically because, compared with investments of terminals implemented onshore, investments of a floating terminal constitute a 50 percent smaller amount. Such type of a vessel is also attractive because the possibilities of the terminal can be expanded more quick-ly and flexibly in the future.

The category winners were first short-listed and then chosen one day prior to the Awards Gala (May 28) by the official CEE Energy Awards Jury, which consisted of the following members:Adam Karasch- Founder & President,

Volta Europe BGSAnna Chmielewska - Principal Banker,

European Bank for Reconstruction and Development

Arkadiusz Fenicki - Advisor to the Board, EZO S.A.

C. David DeBenedetti - NY Attorney, Partner, DMS DeBenedetti Majewski Szcześniak law firm

Dr. Wolfgang Krewel - Director Strategy & Marketing, Central and Eastern Europe, Russia, Alstom Grid

Grzegorz Należyty - General Director of Energy Sector, Siemens Sp. z o.o.

Jan Biernacki - Senior Associate & Advisor - Energy Group, PwC Polska

Karolis Sankovski - Member of the Board, Director of Strategic Infrastructure Department, LITGRID AB

Marcin Prusak - Deputy Managing Director, Head of Sector Teams and Structured Finance, DNB Bank Polska S.A.

Michal Lubieniecki - Vice-President of the Management Board, PIR S.A.

Michal Moczkowski - Member of the Board, Renovatio Power Polska sp. z o.o.

Michal Popiolek - Head of Structured and Mezzanine Finance, mBank

Pawel Przybylski - Director of Wind Power Division, Siemens.

Randy Mott - Chairman of CEERES biogas and Vice president of the Polish Biogas Association.

Robert Janusz Macias - Member of the Board, RWE Renewables Polska Sp. z o.o.

Stefan Schwind - Lawyer, Sales Manager for CEE, Vensys Energy AG

Tomasz Stepien - Energy Correspondent, Argus Media

Waclaw Bilnicki - Director, Grupa PGNiGWojciech P. Cetnarski - President of Board,

Polskie Stowarzyszenie Energetyki Wiatrowej (Polish Wind Energy Association)

Wojciech Zak - Co-Founder & President of the Board, NOVAVIS S.A.Among the Companies that attended

were:Alstom Grid, Argus Media, BioAlians,

BiznesPolska, Bogdanka, Business Alert,

Business New Europe, CDM SMITH, CEE Investments, CEED, Centrum Rozwoju Energetyki, CEZ Polska, CleanTech, Delphi – Lithuania, United Oilfield Services, Dentons, DMS DeBenedetti Majewski Szcześniak, DNB Bank Polska, EBRD, EDP Renewables, EEC Ventures, EnergiaDlaFirm, Energy2Market, Enerpark, EurActiv, EY, EZO S.A., GE, GeoRenewables, Grupa PGNiG, Hays, Linc Energy, Linklaters, Litgrid AB, MBANK, Novavis S.A., PEP/Polenergia, PGE EO, PKP Energetyka, PolCoalDex, Polish Biogas Association, Polish Chamber of Liquid Fuels, Polish Wind Energy Association, Polskie Inwestycje Rozwojowe S.A., Prairie Downs, PWC Polska, Ramboll Polska, Renovatio Power, RWE Renewables, San Leon Energy, SC Consulting, Siemens, Smart Grids.pl, Smart Solar, Squire Sanders, SSW Law Firm, TGE, TPA Horwath, Volta Europe BSG, Vattenfall Trading.

Submissions for the 2015 edition which will take place May 28, 2015 will be open in January. For more information, visit: www.ceeEnergyAwards.com. n

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Italian wind energy producer ERG Renew has bought shares from the Vortex Energy Group in the 42MW EW Orneta 2 wind farm in Poland.

Construction of the project in the mu-nicipality of Radziejów is scheduled to start in the third quarter of 2014, and

the wind farm is set to come online by mid-2015.

The total estimated cost of implementa-tion of the wind farm is €65m.

Global law firm Dentons is advising on the deal, which is expected to close in July.

Dentons’ Warsaw office managing partner Arkadiusz Krasnodębski said: “This will be ERG Renew’s first invest-ment in Poland we feel privileged to par-ticipate in the introduction of such an important wind energy company to the Polish market.” n

Hanplast, a high-precision plastic mouldings engineer-ing firm based in Poland is the first company to deploy Meyer Burger’s ‘SmartWire’ interconnect technology in a PV module assembly plant.

Talking to PV Tech during Intersolar Europe, Hanplast’s executives as well as JV business partner and Poland’s larg-est EPC firm, FreeVolt said it had signed a production equipment contract with Meyer Burger to supply and support the ramp of the novel technology at a new dedicated facility in the first quarter of 2015.

Jaroslaw Miszcuk, founder and mem-ber of the board of Hanplast told PV Tech: “We have 21 years of plastics processing experience and use of tooling and are a major supplier to IKEA for many years. We have been planning for two years and re-cently completed the construction of a new 18,000 square metre building for module production.”

The new PV module entrant will ini-tially ramp an 85MW line with customers already lined up to support the production ramp, Miszcuk told PV Tech.

The company has crucially partnered with FreeVolt, which expects to deploy around 35MW of the ‘SmartWire’ based modules in various PV power plant proj-ects across residential and commercial markets and expects to use around 20% of Hanplast initial production capacity for its own projects, according Kukasz Nowinski, CEO of FreeVolt.

However, the strong customer relation-ship Hanplast enjoys with IKEA could open the doors for both companies to collaborate in the PV business, something Hanplast ex-ecutives hinted was in the works.

Indeed, other long-term customers in its core plastics business are also deemed to be potential customers.

Hanplast is also teaming with Meyer Burger via its SmartWire technology pi-lot line to provide further technology up-dates, material development and produc-tion improvements over time.

Meyer Burger’s pilot line will also be used for module certification purposes to fast track the initial production ramp in Poland.

One of the initial R&D programs Hanplast will develop is a plastic mod-ule frame system to replace aluminium mouldings. It will also develop its own junction boxes.

In a second phase collaboration with Meyer Burger, expected to be initiated in 2016, Hanplast will use cells deploying the equipment supplier’s heterojunction design.

Meyer Burger’s SmartWire technology is claimed to boost overall module conver-sion efficiencies while lowering production costs by reducing losses between cells and module strings as well as significantly re-ducing bill of materials such as Ag paste consumption.

Poland is also home to OEM manu-facturing firm Jabil Circuit, which has a module assembly plant in the country, currently extensively used by ReneSola to provide modules into the EU that avoid import duties and limits to shipment quotas from its manufacturing plants in China.

Jabil Circuit is said to have expanded PV module capacity in Poland to meet in-creased outsourcing demand and had a ca-pacity of around 1GW. n

Energy News

FDI Poland Investor Awards16 October 2014

Hotel Intercontinental, Warsaw

www.FDIPolandAwards.pl

Polish firm establishing module plant using Meyer Burger’s ‘SmartWire’ technology

ERG Renew enters Poland

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Swedish buy Polish wind farm developerSwedish renewables player OX2 has thrown its hat into the Polish wind arena by buying Warsaw-based developer Greenfield Wind.

The company, formerly known as O2, said the deal includes all operations, 11 staff and a project portfolio of around 220MW. Greenfield Wind is being renamed OX2 Wind Poland and OX2 said integration of the companies is “well underway”.

“Poland is an exciting market and we have now acquired the local expertise we need to start the construction of several projects within the next two years,” said OX2 president Johan Ihrfelt.

Poland will introduce a new auction-based support system in 2015, which OX2 said “suits it really well” as it has “many years’ experience of the whole value chain in establishing wind power developments”.

Greenfield Wind chief executive Peter Hogren has now become managing direc-tor and country manager of OX2 Wind Poland.

He said: “We are delighted to be part of the OX2 Group. This puts us in the right place to become a leading turnkey supplier of wind power packages in Poland.

“Not only will we be able to realise and expand our own project portfolio but we

will also be able to expand the company by acquiring external projects.”

PSEW Wind Conference For two days Serock has been the European wind energy capital. This was caused by the largest industry event - the Polish Wind Energy Association Conference and Exhibition. Participants could hear an ad-dress by EWEA CEO, Thomas Becker, and GWEC Secretary General, Steve Sawyer.

During the PWEA Conference and Exhibition CEO of the European Wind Energy Association, Thomas Becker stressed the crucial role played by Poland in wind energy development: “For three years now Poland has been in the first ten wind energy markets in the EU. There are factors underlying the Poland’s success, including good wind conditions, still rela-tively good political framework, relatively strong local industry and recognition for the need to diversify the energy mix to avoid overdomination of a single source”.

Thomas Becker also stressed that the tar-get for the increase in the RES share in the EU energy mix to 27% by 2030 proposed by the European Commission is too low: “The 27 percent target for the share of RES in the en-ergy mix in 2030 proposed by the European Commission is not ambitious. Forecasts

demonstrate that the target will be reached by 2030 as a result of natural development of the business. We propose to increase the tar-get from 27 percent to 30 percent”.

The Conference saw the launch of the “Subsidies to hard coal and lignite extrac-tion in Poland in the 2010 – 2013 period” re-port developed by CASE-Doradcy.Findings of the report were presented by President of CASE-Doradcy, dr Andrzej Cylwik. In the 2010 – 2013 period the total support for coal amounted to PLN 22 billion, whereas direct support to RES was just half of the figure – PLN 10.3 billion. Actually, the sup-port was four times lower, for one has to deduct from the RES support the PLN 4.9 billion spent on subsidies for co-firing of coal with biomass in baseload power plants or for subsidies to depreciated hydro power plants.

“Polish energy shall be based on domes-tic sources. Without doubt, this means coal, although extraction becomes increas-ingly difficult. In some time this might be shale gas; however, renewable energy sources will be the key supplement”, Andrzej Cylwik said.

This year the largest PWEA conference in Serock was visited by more than 600 attendees; the exhibition space was fully sold. n

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This year’s edition was attended by 450 politicians, diplomats, experts and busi-nessmen from the EU countries, the United States and Ukraine. Atlantic Council President Frederick Kempe told a press conference inaugurating the forum that this year much attention would be paid to Ukraine and Central and Eastern Europe.

PANEL RECAP: Minister Sikorski’s Tough Message to Ukraine: There is No Third Way Opening the second day of the fifth annu-al Wroclaw Global Forum, Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski had a clear message to the people of Ukraine: “you were wasting time trying fit between the West and Russia. There is no third way. The third way leads to the third world.”

He continued: “I don’t understand when people say we were wrong to ask Ukraine to choose. You can’t have it both ways. You either fight corruption and promote de-mocracy, or not.”

At the Atlantic Council Freedom Awards and again in his keynote address at the Forum on June 7, Sikorski said that Russian President Vladmir Putin has done the West “a favor” by forcing us to clarify the issues and bring this struggle to the fore. He maintained that this is “at bottom an ideological struggle again, unfortunately.”

Sikorski was later joined in a panel dis-cussion with former US National Security Advisor Stephen J. Hadley, who made an em-phatic plea for the West to “get going” on its vision of a Europe whole, free, and at peace, in which Russia finds a peaceful place.

To the question from panel moderator and Atlantic Council President and CEO Frederick Kempe of whether or not the West has done enough to help Ukraine, Hadley replied “no” and outlined three actions:1. Push back on Putin’s lies and get the

truth out. Become an agent of influence in Ukraine that replaces propaganda.

2. Continue sanctions against Russia and deliver economic assistance to Ukraine.

3. Help shore up defense capabilities in Ukraine and the broader region to change the strategic calculus against Putin in the long-term.Sikorski expanded on this issue of de-

fense assistance by urging the United States to consider a larger military pres-ence in Poland. “We’re not hung up on the word permanent,” he said. “But we’re at a loss to understand why it’s alright to have bases in Germany, Spain, the UK, Turkey... Why not Poland? I assure you Poland is no threat... to Germany.”

PANEL RECAP: Estonian President Ilves: ‘The Liberal Order is Being Challenged’The challenges posed to Europe and to liberal democracy by Russia’s authoritari-anism and aggressiveness highlight “how miraculous” is Poland’s quarter-century transformation from Soviet satellite to democratic model in Eastern Europe, Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves

said in opening the 2014 Wroclaw Global Forum.

The Russian challenge, dramatized by its armed seizure and annexation of Crimea and its support for the secessionist uprising in eastern Ukraine, underscores that the extension of democratic gover-nance into the former Communist-ruled Eastern Europe is an incomplete task, Ilves said. His address opened the two-day an-nual forum, co-sponsored by the Atlantic Council of the United States, the Polish Institute of International Affairs and the city of Wroclaw.

This year’s forum followed immediate-ly upon this week’s visit to Poland of US President Barack Obama, with speakers discussing how the US and its European partners can best implement the commit-ments made by Obama and his host, Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski, to strengthen the transatlantic relationship.

While the collapse of communism in the 1980s and 1990s led the liberal, demo-cratic West to feel it had won a lasting vic-tory, Russia’s assault on Ukraine and the

Politics

Wrocław Global Forum 2014 attracts 450 diplomatsThe situation in Ukraine, security in Central and Eastern Europe, as well as the future of global economy were the main subjects of the Wroclaw Global Forum 2014 that was held in Wroclaw in early June. The three-day Wroclaw Global Forum is an annual conference fo-cusing mainly on trans-Atlantic economic cooperation and political relations between the European Union (EU) and the United States.

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recent electoral advances of extreme na-tionalist political parties in Europe have undermined that idea, Ilves said. Many in the West are having difficulty abandon-ing comfortable notions that democracy is safe and no longer must be fought for, he suggested.

“We want desperately to believe in the old coalitions, and hang on to them in the

hope that all this will go away,” Ilves said. “That Crimea will be restored, that we don’t have to go on with sanctions [against Russia] or raise defense expenditures. That we can go on making money with our deals and our financial institutions and our lucrative trade in everything from gas to building spetsnaz [special operations] training centers in Russia.”

As the transatlantic community adjusts to the challenge from Russia, Ilves said, it should draw “judicious guidance” from “a vibrant, fiercely democratic Poland, the only large European country with a living memory of what authoritarian rule, com-munist rule, is about.”

PANEL RECAP: Poland’s Siemoniak: Russia-Ukraine Crisis a ‘Wake-Up’ for NATO on Defense BudgetsPoland’s announcement in June of plans to increase its defense spending to meet the target set by NATO is in part a re-sponse to the “very strong wakeup call” for NATO represented by Russia’s attacks on Ukraine, Polish Defense Minister Tomasz Siemoniak told foreign policy specialists and government officials at the Wroclaw Global Forum. Opening a forum on trans-atlantic security and defense following Russia’s annexation of Crimea, Siemoniak said that NATO’s response to the crisis rep-resents an historic test for the alliance.

“First of all, it is necessary to increase defense spending” across the alliance, Siemoniak said through an interpreter. “Dear allies, we need to put our money on the table, and that’s all there is to it.” In dis-cussions within the alliance, many of whose

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members contribute to defense at less than the 2 percent target “I have been impressed in what sophisticated ways we can say that we don’t have the money,” Siemoniak said. “Sorry for being so straightforward.”

Siemoniak, who has served as Poland’s defense minister since 2011, called on the United States to shift its military presence in Europe eastward. “Why are thousands of American soldiers deployed in countries don’t have a sense of threat?” he asked. “The logic is clear: we need the troops where the threat is. This is the basics of deterrence.”

Among Siemoniak’s points to the Forum audience were these:• “When it comes to the Russian policy …

I’m pessimistic. … We well remember in this part of the world that an imperial idea has been driving Russia for 300 years. … What is disquieting is that this imperial concept … is enjoying such a support in Russian society and among its elites. … We are afraid that the painful tendency that we know so well can escalate.”

• “We cannot deny what President Obama said -- that peace and prosperity are not given once and for all. The current crisis will be with us for a long time. … It is impossible to imagine that Russia will give Crimea back to Ukraine. And it is for that reason that the conclusions that NATO and the West will draw have to be long-term ones. I’m convinced that weakness by NATO is an encouragement for Russia to further expand.”

• “Poles do appreciate the strong voice of President Barack Obama from the Castle Square that we will never stand alone. Those words remain in our minds and in our hearts. This is the very essence of the transatlantic spirit.”

PANEL RECAP: European Commissioner for Trade Karel de GuchtLadies and gentlemen, I am very happy to be here with you to discuss the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership. That may sound like a platitude, not only because so many speeches begin with a declara-tion like that, but also because some of you might know that as EU Trade Commissioner I have to give lots of speeches on this topic.

In fact, of all the issues I work on, this is the one that most people are interested in.

So that means lots of invitations to speak about. And if I’m frank – and I’m known for being frank – I would be happy to give fewer of them. But even if it sounds like a plati-tude, it is not.

I am very happy to discuss this topic here in Wrocław today. And for two good reasons. The first reason becomes clear

when you look at the attendance list for this Global Forum. We have government repre-sentatives, we have researchers and have university officials.

But we also have many business people drawn from the thriving economy of this city. Companies from Poland, from other parts of the European Union and from across the Atlantic are all working together and in parallel to do business – of course – but also to improve local people’s quality of life in the process.

There could be no better illustra-tion of what we are trying to do with the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership. These companies are exam-ples of how transatlantic trade – at 2 billion euros a day – and investment – which has reached stocks of more than 3 trillion euro overall – is already strong.

The reason it is strong is because it is sup-ported by many bridges.

Some of these are physical – like the thousands of communications cables, flight paths and shipping routes that allow infor-mation and people, goods and services to travel freely from America to Europe.

But others, just as important, exist only in the form of written words that govern our behaviour.

To give the best example, the rules of the World Trade Organisation mean that both the European Union and the United States are committed to economic openness. What we are doing now with TTIP is widen-ing that bridge of rules. We are adding extra lanes so that more prosperity can travel be-tween our economies–in the form of goods, services and investment.

We will do that in many different ways: removing tariffs and barriers to services trade, making regulations more compatible, expanding public procurement opportuni-ties, protecting investments and creating a true transatlantic market for energy.

Our aim is to expand opportunities for people like the citizens of Poland. We want them to continue to benefit from existing investment and trade, and we want them to think bigger – to look even more to the US as a market for Polish business services, car parts or food.

And not just directly. We have to remem-ber that Poland’s huge exports to Germany – for instance – very often end up being sold on the US market once they are incorporat-ed in German products.

Polish exporters helped this country keep growing during the crisis. They have shown they can take on the world. TTIP will help them do that – and make the whole country more prosperous as a result.

However, some of you may know – and here let me also be frank – that many people have doubts about this deal.

They believe that to get these gains with the United States we will have to sacrifice some of the core principles of European society.

They say that in order to get this deal the European Union will have to abandon our commitment to high levels of protection for people’s health and safety, or the environ-ment of financial stability.

They say that we will have to change our laws on genetically modified food. Or that we want to weaken the tough regulation of banks that we just put in place after the crisis.

They say all this… even when both sides have made very clear that we have no inten-tion of lowering protections.

There are some who say that the European Union and the United States are prepared to give total dominion to mul-tinational corporations through investor to state dispute settlement, even when we have explained that our objective on invest-ment is quite the opposite. We are not start-ing from scratch here. Poland, for example, is one of several Member States that already has a bilateral investment treaty with the US. Poland also has more than 30 other agreements like this and EU Member States overall have about 1400 of them.

What we are trying to do in TTIP is to start updating all of these agreements to include stronger safeguards that will help avoid frivolous cases and ensure that we protect our right to regulate, while continu-ing to encourage job–creating investment.

And there are some who say that these negotiations are undemocratic and opaque, even when the European Commission pub-lishes its negotiating positions, consults with stakeholders, and seeks the counsel of the European Parliament, all with the strong sup-port of the EU governments in the Council, and even when it is written in black and white in the Treaty of Lisbon that no deal can pass without the approval of both those bodies.

Let me be clear: I welcome this debate. Detailed public discussion can only lead to better policies. And it is a core part of our democracy.

But it brings me to the second reason I am glad to be here with you. Because on Wednesday we celebrated the 25th anniver-sary of the fall of communism:• A day that commemorates the democrat-

ic revolutions of 1989 that transformed our whole continent.

• A day that marked the beginning of the return journey of this country and ten others from the communist bloc to the heart of the European project.

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• But also a day that reminds us of the deep well of values that we share with the United States.Those values include open markets, de-

mocracy, and the respect for the individual that is the basis for the entire edifice of regulation on both sides of the Atlantic.

And Europe and the United States are among the very small number of places in the world that respect all of these val-ues. On all of these points we share so much more than on what we differ – we only need to look beyond our noses to see that.

And strengthening, not weakening, those shared values is what this agreement is all about.

Because though we are the two largest economies in the world, the world is not static. The great fact of our time is that new economic powers - on our own continent and all around the world - are emerging. Let me be clear: Those new powers are very welcome:

Just as the West’s prosperity, through globalisation, has fuelled their rise, their prosperity is creating opportunities for us.

But the best way to make sure that mu-tually reinforcing process continues is by making sure that we have an international system – political and economic – that re-mains committed to open markets, democ-racy and respect for the individual.

But Europe and America’s capacity to do that is gradually falling – along with our share of the world economy.

So we need to maximise our influence by sticking together, and leading by example. Sticking together has been the focus of President Obama’s visit to Poland, Brussels and France this week. He naturally em-phasised Poland’s important place in the Transatlantic Alliance. And, also naturally, its security dimension. But TTIP can also help. How?• By finding ways to make our regulations

on products like cars and medicines more compatible – showing in the pro-cess that global rules on issues like this are possible.

• Or by uniting our approaches to the way labour rights and the rules on environ-mental protection can best be supported by trade.

• And by establishing the principle that we are all better off when energy and raw materials are traded along market prin-ciples. In fact, given today’s foreign policy challenges, removing the legal uncertain-ty that undermines transatlantic trade in energy would be perhaps the strongest way this deal would support our alliance.I do not for a moment pretend that

the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership will change the world as much as that election of May 1989 or the fall of

the wall in Berlin six months later. But I do assert that by creating new economic op-portunities, and by strengthening shared Atlantic values in a changing world, it will change people’s lives for the better. And I will continue to make every effort to con-vince people of that fact.

But that is not a task for me alone, or for the European Commission alone. It is the responsibility of everyone in this room – government representative, or academic, businessperson or activist – who wants a prosperous and stable future for Europe. I hope, therefore, that I can count on your help.

Shortly before becoming Poland’s first post-Communist Prime Minister, the late Tadeusz Mazowiecki was asked on American television about what he saw as his greatest task. He answered that it was to convince people that things can be better.

We know that events did not follow a straight line from 1989 to where we are to-day. There were many ups and downs. But the countless Polish people who brought this country forward over the last twenty–five years rose to meet those challenges.

And when I look around this room, and when any of us looks across the whole European continent, there can be no doubt things did get better, much better indeed.

This agreement presents us with the same challenge today. We must also rise to meet it. n

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Ukrainian agricultural companies from Agroton Public Ltd. to Kernel Holding SA are rallying on speculation the government will reach a trade pact with the European Union that will help them boost exports.

During June, the stocks were the best performers among 356 companies on the Warsaw Stock Exchange. Wheat and sun-flower producer Agroton soared 18 per-cent in the past week for the biggest gain. Kernel, the largest Ukrainian company listed on the Polish bourse, surged 46 per-cent from a March low while Milkiland NV, a dairy producer with businesses in Russia and Ukraine, has advanced 42 percent in three weeks as the confrontation between the two countries eased.

Petro Poroshenko, who was sworn in as Ukraine’s new president on June 7, vowed to complete a trade agreement with the EU quickly as he battles pro-Russian rebels in the country’s easternmost regions.

“Better trade ties with Europe would certainly increase the value of one of Ukraine’s greatest assets: the quality of their farmland,” David Riedel, president and founder of Riedel Research Group Inc., said. “The country has the ability to be the breadbasket of Europe if given favorable access to markets there.”

European Promises The EU has promised Ukraine almost half a billion euros a year of trade relief, eliminating annual import duties on some Ukrainian agricultural goods. Kernel trades at 0.7 times its book value, the low-est ratio among its 15 global peers and less than one-third the average valuation of the group, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

“Ukraine’s agricultural companies look very attractive at their current valuations as the industry should benefit the most from closer ties with Europe,” Mattias Westman, who oversees about $3.6 billion in Russian assets as chief executive offi-cer at Prosperity Capital in London, said.

“They should be able to increase exports significantly as demand is there and some trade restrictions are likely to be eased.”

Barroso’s Commitment The hryvnia-denominated UX Index of stocks traded in Kiev has surged 14 percent over the past month, the most among 93 stock gauges after Argentina’s benchmark. Investors have returned to the assets of the former Soviet republic after it won a $17 billion bailout from the International Monetary Fund, resumed talks with Russia’s OAO Gazprom to lower its fuel payments and sought an end to the fight-ing in its eastern regions.

Poroshenko, in his inauguration speech, urged the 28-nation European bloc to give Ukraine, the world’s third-biggest corn ex-porter and sixth-largest shipper of wheat, the prospect of a EU membership. The EU-Ukraine Association Agreement will be signed “as quickly as possible,” European Commission President Jose Barroso said in Brussels June 5. “Both sides are commit-ted to this.”

Kernel’s shares jumped 10 percent to 33.96 zloty in Warsaw in mid-June, trim-ming their decline for the year to 11

percent. The stock is heading for its fourth weekly gain, the longest stretch of advanc-es since November 2012.

“We have long been positive on Kernel Holdings which would directly benefit,” Riedel said. He has a buy recommendation on the stock with a 12-month price esti-mate of 66.26 zloty, implying a 95 percent return the recent closing price. “The com-pany needs good yields to boost produc-tion and drive margins higher.”

Milkiland, Agroton Agroton rose to 2.97 zloty for the best five-day performance on the Warsaw Stock Exchange, extending its rally this year to 52 percent. Milkiland soared 15 percent in the past week to 7.36 zloty.

The European Commission proposed in March to remove import duties on Ukrainian goods ranging from cereals to chemicals. The EU would eliminate annual tariffs against Ukraine of 330 million euros on agricultural products including cereals, pork and poultry and 53 million euros on processed food, European Trade Commissioner Karel De Gucht said March 11.

(source: Bloomberg)

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Ukraine agricultural stocks advance on closer Europe ties

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Aluminum products firm Kety plans minor Danish deal to enter ScandinaviaListed aluminum products firm Kety will buy an unspecified Danish aluminum millwork products with annual revenues of EUR 3.4 mln as a first step in building its own sales in Scandinavian markets, Kety said in a market filing. Kety has established a unit in Denmark that will conclude the deal June 16 assuming condi-tions to the deal are met, including trans-fer of rights to the target’s sales contracts, Kety noted. “The goal of the transaction is to increase sales of aluminum systems of (Kety unit) Aluprof in Scandinavia,” Kety management said in its statement.

Poland continues efforts to make non-Treasury debt market more liquid

Poland will continue efforts to enliven its non-Treasury debt market and render it more liquid, deputy Finance Minister Dorota Podedworna-Tarnowska told PAP. “Works on making the non-Treasury debt market more liquid and setting it in motion will be continued, the reactivated Financial Market Development Council will be func-tioning,” Podedworna-Tarnowska told PAP.

Works on legislation concerning mort-gage-backed bonds and bonds should be completed in the near future, with the latter expected to reach the Standing Committee of the Council of Ministers soon, the official declared.

The Finance Ministry is also work-ing on implementation of a series of EU laws concerning financial markets. “I’m facing several challenges related to EU regulations in the area of payment ser-vices, capital market and financial market

structure,” Podedworna-Tarnowska said. “Transposition of EU law frequently in-volves deep changes in the Polish law, which means a series of regulatory chal-lenges,” she added. “I hope that financial market members will support me in those works.”

Shale gas production in six years at earliest, says PGNiG deputyListed natural gas group PGNiG expects it will take at least six years before commer-cial production of shale gas can be launched in Poland, PGNiG deputy CEO Waldemar Wojcik said during a shale gas debate. “I am talking about commercial production, i.e. profitable, with the possibility of pro-viding gas to clients,” Wojcik said of the six year period which he believes is necessary to launch commercial production. PGNiG assumes it will have completed the explo-ration stage in shale gas by end-2016, the official said. Poland is at a “very prelimi-nary” stage of shale gas exploration and still lacks technology for shale extraction as slightest geological differences entail colossal differences in technology neces-sary, Wojcik said.

Torpol rail builder eyes PLN 52 mln from IPO; lead holder Polimex-Mostostal sells big stakeRail infrastructure builder Torpol intends to rake in roughly PLN 52 mln from the IPO sale of up to 7.4 mln new shares. Its lead shareholder, troubled listed construc-tion group Polimex-Mostostal, is selling up to 15.6 mln shares, an issue prospectus published shows.

Torpol will split the proceeds between PLN 25 mln working capital for current projects in Poland, then PLN 15 mln for equipment and PLN 10 mln for working capital in Norway, the firm said.

Some 10% of the total offer will be di-rected towards retail investors, the firm said. The firm will first allot new-issue shares and only once the offer is exhaust-ed - existing shares on offer by Polimex-Mostostal, the prospectus indicates. If Polimex fails to find buyers for all of the offered shares, it will refrain from selling them for a year.

Torpol will issue no new shares within 12 months from the IPO, the firm declared. Bookbuilding for institutional investors in the deal ran from June 16 to 24. Rights to shares should begin trading July 8, the firm said.

Torpol earned a net profit of PLN 4.79 mln in 2013 on revenues of PLN 415.7 mln. EBITDA earnings came to PLN 10.7 mln. The firm is forecasting PLN 24.9 mln in 2014 net profits on PLN 801.3 mln revenues and PLN 46.7 mln EBITDA. The firm cur-rently has a PLN 2.2 billion order portfolio for 2014-2015. The firm will forego publi-cation of Q1 results but claims they are “in line with our assumptions,” deputy CEO Michal Ulatowski told a press conference. Torpol will recommend full profit reten-tion for the coming three years and notes that bank covenants could impede any de-cision by shareholders to take a dividend.

Fund manager Altus TFI analyzes two takeover transactionsFund manager Altus, which published its issue prospectus in mid-June, is analyzing

Listed bank PKO BP is expecting binding bids on its real estate unit Qualia Development by the end of June and hopes to conclude the sale in Q3, PKO BP’s strategy and invest-ments director Pawel Borys told PAP.

QUALIA DEVELOPMENT“We have noted quite considerable interest - more than seven investors filed accept-able, good price offers. A few entities were invited to carry out the final due diligence and file binding offers by the end of the month. We expect to conclude this trans-action in Q3. We think the timing of the transaction is good, the real estate market

is in a recovery, mortgage loans are grow-ing fast. It’s a good moment for developers to think about new projects.”

INTRA-GROUP MERGERS“Starting from July all of IT resources of Inteligo Financial Services (IFS) will be moved to the bank, and later, in Q4, the unit will be merged with PKO BP Finat, which will be a center of joint services for all PKO BP units. Thanks to the integration we will make better use of IT resources, we will achieve cost synergies and tax optimi-zation. Integration of IFS in the PKO BP group will generate over PLN 5 mln cost

savings over a year. Savings will be visible from the first quarter of next year.”

INTEGRATION WITH NORDEA BANK POLSKA“The process of integration is going very well, we have filed a motion for merger with the KNF financial regulator. The first cost and revenue synergies will appear this year. Visible synergy effects should appear after the legal merger, but the biggest syn-ergies will become apparent in subsequent years.” The legal merger will take place in October 2014 and the operating merger - in April 2015. n

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PKO BP bank on its real estate unit, intra-group reshuffling and Nordea synergies

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two potential takeovers of investment houses, Altus TFI CEO Piotr Osiecki said.

“Already at present we are analyzing two potential takeover transactions of TFI fund managers”, Osiecki said, echoing the statement from the prospectus. “Given the situation on the market, it is highly probable that in the coming 12-18 months further attractive acquisition assets will appear.”

Potential transactions likely to come to market include fund managers BPH TFI, Skarbiec TFI (which may also soon be floated on the WSE), as well as KBC TFI, Osiecki said. Altus is interested in mid-sized funds, with AuM between PLN 3-5 bln, the CEO also said. Altus could also be interested, although to a lesser extent, with taking over only assets and invest-ment funds without purchasing the man-aging entities should attractive opportuni-ties appear, Osiecki elaborated. In Altus’s view, the Polish fund managing market faces consolidation, the CEO believes.

“Only strong independent TFI and big managers owned by banks will remain,” he opined.

Altus remains committed to being a dividend company, the official said. The firm plans to allot 75-100% of its profit to dividend, the company said in its issue prospectus. Altus TFI will seek to raise up to PLN 200 mln in an IPO to fund poten-tial acquisitions, the firm said in its issue prospectus.

International Personal Finance soars 20%Doorstep lender International Personal Finance (IPF) has been one of Britain’s best-performing shares so far this year, but some fund managers argue it has fur-ther to go. The average share in the FTSE 250 index is down by 2pc so far this year, but IPF has bucked the trend and is up by 19pc.

Guy Anderson, who runs the Mercantile investment trust, bought shares in the

firm last December after the company was handed a £2.4m fine by the Polish consum-er protection office over the way it calcu-lated interest rates. The shares slumped by 20pc on the day – offering canny investors a chance to pick them up on the cheap.

Mr Anderson admitted that the firm was prone to regulatory change, but said he was excited by its presence in fast-grow-ing markets, such as Poland and Mexico. “It has built a strong competitive position in several European countries and Mexico, where it is continuing to gain positive mo-mentum,” said Mr Anderson. “The firm exemplifies many of the qualities that we seek in companies as investors, includ-ing the ability to deliver long-term capi-tal growth, a track record of being highly cash generative and attractive valuation. The company has shown a commitment to adapting to the changing landscape.” Its dividend growth record has been strong in recent years; it raised the payment by 20pc last year. n

Listed trader Eurocash signed a prelimi-nary agreement to buy a 51% stake in firm operating the Inmedio chain of press shops from French Lagardere, as well as a franchise deal for developing the chain of ‘1minute’ convenience stores, Eurocash said in a market filing.

Following the ‘Inmedio’ transaction, Eurocash will gain control over 410 press shops located across Poland, primarily in shopping centres, the firm said. The deal is conditional upon, among others, Eurocash receiving regulatory consent from anti-monopoly body UOKiK, the filing reads.

Inmedio’s operational management will continue to be handled by Lagardere unit HDS Polska, while Eurocash will focus on supply and development through fran-chise, Eurocash management board mem-ber Jacek Owczarek said as quoted in the firm’s press statement.

“Eurocash, with its controlling stake, will work on further expanding the chain through a franchise model and on reinforc-ing the competitive footprint of the Inmedio stores by providing an effective and com-prehensive supply service,” Owczarek said.

Under the franchise deal, signed be-tween Eurocash and Lagardere units ECC and HDS Polska, Eurocash will develop the chain of ‘1minute’ convenience stores,

which currently consists of 70 locations in Poland, Eurocash said.

Both agreements will allow the Eurocash group “to develop in the convenience segment based on the franchise model,” the filing reads. “The convenience format is an efficient method for building our competitive edge over discount retailers and hypermarkets”.

In 2013 Inmedio recorded PLN 507 mln in revenues and a PLN 15.6 mln EBITDA,

Eurocash said citing non-audited data. Inmedio shops offer FMCG products in-cluding press & books. Selected Inmedio locations also offer bill payment, cash transfer and courier services, Eurocash said in the press statement. 1minute con-venience stores offer groceries, alcohol, other FMCG, as well as heated fast food. HDS Polska currently manages some 740 retail locations in Poland. n

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Eurocash buys ‘Inmedio’ convenience stores, signs franchise deal to develop ‘1minute’ stores

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The Cosmopolitan Tower Twarda 2/4 is fully complete, and residents have begun to move into their new luxury flats.

According to Tacit Development manage-ment, half of the flats have been sold so far, with plans to be fully sold by end of year 2015.

“We have finalized the last touches to adapt the flats to individual clients’ needs – says Michal Borowski the President of Tacit Development Polska JS. “We have planned passing the apartments to own-ers from 26th June, which means that first inhabitants will have moved in by the end of this month. They will be able to use all available facilities. Residential reception is already working and the recreational floor with fitness, saunas, jacuzzi, club rooms and terrace is ready to use.”

The skyrise is 160m high, has 44 floors and 236 ready-for-use apartments with sizes rang-ing from 54m2 to 700m2. Residents move into fully-ready apartments finished and equipped

by the developer. They are fitted with oak floors, fully equipped kitchens with kitchen fitting by Alno and kitchen facilities by Miele, finished bathrooms with high quality ce-ramics and mounting (Duravit, Dornbracht, Kaldewei, Duscholux), furnished wardrobes with washing machines and dryers, spotlights mounted in suspended ceilings, smart home management system HMS which manages window-blinds, lights, heating and aircondi-tioning with the help of mobile devices.

The company Tacit Development Polska JS sp. z o.o. s.k., the developer of

Cosmopolitan Tower Twarda 2/4 said it has sold half of the apartments, and rented or sold half of commercial space by June 2014.

“First offices tenants have already moved in the building, the office recep-tion has started regular operation since the beginning of June. We are still ne-gotiating ground floor space – Michal Borowski says.”

The official opening ceremony in the presence of the architect Helmut Jahn and the town authorities representatives is planned for 19th September 2014. n

Real Estate

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5th ABSL Conference, Europe’s most important business services sector event, was held on May 22nd-23rd, 2014 in Poznań Congress Center.

The main theme of the 5th ABSL Conference was “Poland – taking on the world!” 2014 ABSL Conference coincided with groundbreaking events - the 25th an-niversary of June 4th 1989, the first partly - free elections in post - war Poland and 10th anniversary of Poland’s EU accession. This was a perfect opportunity to examine the development of the Polish economy over the past decades and its still untapped potential.

Conference in numbers:• Over 650 participants• 90 speakers and panelists• 50 sessions including presentations,

panel discussions and workshopsSpecial Guest of the event was

Madeleine Albright, former US secretary of state and one of the world’s most re-spected political leaders. On May 23rd, Conference day two, she gave a keynote address, followed by a Q&A session. Madeleine Albright stressed that the changes in Poland in the last 25 years can might serve as an example for other countries. She stated that a spectacular development of the business services sector was one of the manifestations of Poland’s success.

The participants of the two-day confer-ence could listen to the presentations of business leaders as well as sector analiti-cians. The speakers included:• Steve Bandrowczak, Senior Vice

President at HP, GBS & BPS, “What are the levers to take THE global lead in advanced business services?”

• Charles Sutherland, Executive Vice President, HfS Research, BPO Strategies, “Crossing the Chasm: How the evolution of the extended enter-prise will impact near-shore business services in delivery locations like Poland and the CEE”

• Gautam Thakkar, Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director, Infosys BPO Ltd., “Driving business outcomes - evolution in client expectations from business services companies”

• Jeffrey L. Schuth, International Director, Corporate Solutions, EMEA, JLL, “Global Corporate Real Estate Trends – shaping focus on the business service industry”

• Claes Larsson, Executive Vice President, Skanska AB, „Building Global Leadership”

• Sian Herbert - Jones, Chief Financial Officer, Sodexo Group, “Influential Leadership enabling business expansion”.The representatives of leading global

analytical companies strongly marked their presence during the annual Conference:• Tom Olavi Bangemann, Senior Vice-

President Business Transformation, The Hackett Group

• Wojciech Bogdan, Partner, Mckinsey & Company

• Hanumantha Rao Karthik, Vice President Global Sourcing, Everest Group

• Paul Morrison, Partner, Head Of BPO And Shared Services Practice, Alsbridge

• Antonio M. Russo, Head of Shared Services and BPO Advisory, Deloitte Consulting AGToday, 470 foreign-capital service cen-

ters operating in Poland employ approxi-mately 128,000 specialists. Other speak-ers discussing the condition of Polish economy and the strategic importance of business services sector included Rafał Benecki, Senior Economist at ING and Maciej Reluga, Chief Economist at BZ WBK and the Economic Council member.

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5th ABSL Conference in Poznań

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Apart from main sessions, conference participants attended presentations and discussions within 7 breakout streams:• Explore new streams of potential busi-

ness services sector growth• The right destination for your future

business services• From Process Improvement to

Innovation, from Automation to Robotics• Empowerment of stakeholders

• Explore new streams of potential busi-ness services sector growth – Banking Insurance and Financial Services

• The right solutions for your business• Empowerment of stakeholders

– LeadershipThe final event of the two-day meet-

ing of industry leaders was the discus-sion of the sector’s future in Poland and ABSL’s importance for the growth of this

branch of the economy. The discussion was chaired by Dr. Peter Peters, Expert Principal, McKinsey & Company, and the panelists were the representatives of ABSL from Poland, Paweł Panczyj, Managing Director, from the Czech Republic, Jonathan Appleton, General Secretary and Board Member ABSL Czech Republic, and from Romania, Alexander Weigl, President of ABSL in Romania. n

BPO/Shared Services

World BPO Forum in New YorkAt the 7th annual World BPO/ITO Forum in New York (held in early June), Poland was represented by the City of Katowice (including Mayor Uszok), City of Poznan, and City of Lublin. Poland had a strong profile at the event, including a special break-out session on Poland. On the 2nd day, the organizers played a 2-minute ASPIRE “Happy” vid-eo, which woke up the audience and put a human face on the business of Poland’s SSC/BPO sector.

Luxoft to move 500 programmers from Russia and Ukraine to Poland, Romania, and Bulgaria Luxoft, a software development and IT out-sourcing company, founded in Russia but cur-rently registered in Switzerland, says it plans to move some of its programmers in Russia and Ukraine to Bulgaria, Romania and Poland, where the company already runs operations, due to political tensions in the two countries, Bloomberg reports.

The group currently has about 7,500 employ-ees, 49 percent of which are based in Ukraine and 29 percent in Russia. It may move program-mers from these countries to Bulgaria, Poland and Romania, where it is expanding offices and requires more expertise, Luxoft Chief Executive Officer Dmitry Loschinin said.

It is uncertain however whether the compa-ny will fire the 500 programmers in Russia and Ukraine, and hire the same number of staff in Romania, Bulgaria and Poland, or if it plans to re-locate the 500 people to these three countries.

Luxoft entered the Romanian market in 2008, by acquiring local company ITC Networks. It current-ly has more than 800 employees in its Bucharest office. The group also has development centers in Bulgaria, Poland, Russia, Ukraine and Vietnam. The company, whose business stood at some USD 340 million in the last four reporting quarters, is listed on the New York Stock Exchange and has a market capitalization of USD 1 billion.

Orange Poland wins Shared Services Centre contractThe Polish Shared Services Centre (Centrum Uslug Wspolnych), which is an institution serv-ing central administration, has selected a sub-mission by Orange Poland in the tender to provide fixed telephony using POTS and/or ISDN fixed line, for several dozen administra-tive units of the government, including twelve ministries, voivodeship offices, the prosecutor general and the regulators UKE and UOKiK. The services will be provided over two years until the end of May 2016. The contract amount was not disclosed.

The customer estimates that under the con-tract, administrative units will be able to use 68 million minutes of national calls to fixed net-works, 13 million minutes of calls to mobile net-works and 1 million minutes of international calls. The Shared Services Centre organised the ten-der as an open one. Price was the only criterion. Besides Orange Poland, Netia also competed for the contract. Previously, municipalities have used the services of several operators.

Active Sales Support Group to open in RadomActive Sales Support Group (ASSG), dynami-cally developing outsourcing company, will expand from its Warsaw and Kielce, as of July 2014, with new projects run from Radom. ASSG, established in 2007, offers to its clients sales processes outsourcing, direct sales and D2D, market research, product and service logistics as well as implementation of sup-port systems. The company will take up office space at Radom Office Park (owned by AIG Lincoln).

“We were also pleased with the level of support received both from the City and AIG Lincoln. Additionally, we could not ignore the city’s close vicinity and convenient access to Warsaw, which was very important to our cli-ents” says Marek Jadachowki, CEO of ASSG.

Tomasz Piekoś, Board Member ASSG, is convinced that ASSG will progress to develop its business on a large scale. “Initially, we are planning to fill 100 new workplaces, although our goal is to create as many as 300 new posi-tions in Radom.

Largest US office supplies company Staples considering PolandStaples, the largest office supplies company in the world, is considering setting up a new Shared Services centre in Poland. According to Greg Lipper, who is leading the search on behalf of Staples, the Gdansk region is an early favorite. n

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Over the past 5 years, Poland’s former capital, famous for tourism and culture, has emerged as Europe’s city of choice for multinationals to locate ad-vanced business services and technology centres.

The industry now employs over 35,000 people in Kraków (one in seven of the total working population), a figure expected to rise to 38,000 by the end of 2014. This cre-ates a huge opportunity for the city which was discussed the conference’s Stakeholder Summit organized by the Mayor of Krakow and ASPIRE, the industry body for the sec-tor in Krakow.

“Made in Kraków Stakeholder Summit – Building a cross-sector partnership for prosperity” gathered key stakeholders from the industry, from the city govern-ment and the universities to discuss what is required in terms of future collaboration to maximise the benefit to the city of the dynamic growth of the industry.

In the latest Tholons Top 100 Outsourcing Destinations – the most au-thoritative ranking for the business ser-vices industry – Kraków moved ahead of Dublin as the No. 1 location in Europe, as well as climbing to 9th globally. Prague is the next best placed city in CEE. Warsaw was the only other Polish city in the top 50.

According to ASPIRE, the sector has grown at almost 20 percent per annum in each of the last 5 years and the growth rate is set to accelerate. Conservative esti-mates suggest 3,000 new jobs before the end of 2014. Last year, 11 companies each added 200-500 people, including companies such as Shell, Cisco, State Street and Brown Brothers Harriman and their were 12 new entrants to the market.

Krakow benefits from scale and maturity compared to other locations in the region. Almost 9 million people live within a 100 km (65 mile radius) of Krakow and the city delivers 40,000 graduates to the job market annually. The business processes delivered from Kraków are rapidly climbing the value chain and centres are also broadening their scope. This has created a virtuous circle with experienced professionals attracted from other European locations. Over 90 countries are served from Kraków in 34

languages and earnings in the sector are al-most 60% higher than the national average salary in the private sector.

The sector is strongly supported by the City of Kraków. Mayor prof. Jacek Majchrowski says:

“The continued development of the ad-vanced business services sector is very im-ported for us. The modern service centres and the research and development cen-tres that global companies are locating in Krakow drive our local economy. Moreover, centres are attracting graduates of Kraków’s universities. Krakow is a living example that cooperation between business, univer-sities and local government is possible.”

Andrew Hallam, founder of ASPIRE, said: “Kraków is unique because of the ecosystem which has developed to support the growth of the sector. This is driving innovation and

investment and gives us confidence in the future. What we have seen is centres mov-ing from transactional processes to higher value processes. Increasingly they are be-coming centres of excellence and strategi-cally important to the business.

Wojciech Burkot, Engineering Director of Google adds: “BPOs, Shared Service Centres, Financial Services & IT Centres bring organisational and technological solutions which drive progress and inno-vation. We need to attract skilled students and employees to Krakow so we can climb the value ladder of our parent companies and attract evermore complex work.”

According to ASPIRE research the aver-age age of employees in the industry is 29 and 70% of employees are Kraków univer-sity graduates. 11% of people working in centres are young foreign nationals. n

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EC approves investment of 72 mln euros for air traffic management in PolandThe European Commission (EC) consented to granting Poland 72.1 million euros to fi-nance the construction of a new air traffic management system and upgrading relat-ed infrastructure. The system is expected to raise security and capacity parameters and reduce the negative environmental im-pact of air traffic, media reports said.

When completed, it will be installed in the cities Gdansk, Katowice, Krakow, Lodz, Szczecin, Warsaw, Wroclaw and Zielona Gora. EU Commissioner for Regional Policy Johannes Hahn in Brussels called the project “a very positive step forward in modernizing the air traffic management system in Poland.”

The construction of the new system comes under the EU’s Infrastructure and Environment Operational Programme, the total costs of which are 92.9 million euros.

EIB supports modernisation of Polish railways with EUR 268 mil-lion loanThe European Investment Bank (EIB) is lending EUR 268 million to the manager of the national railway network in Poland, PKP Polskie Linie Kolejowe S.A. (PLK), for the upgrading of 58 km of an existing elec-trified railway line (E30) from Katowice to Kraków.

Thanks to the EIB loan, a number of improvements will be introduced on this section, such as the replacement of bal-last, sleepers, track and overhead catenary as well as upgrading of the existing power

supply. Several stations will also be recon-structed to ensure full accessibility for peo-ple with reduced mobility. The modernised line will allow for the introduction of trains running at a maximum speed of 160 km/h for passenger trains and 120 km/h for freight trains. Furthermore, additional environmental mitigation measures will be implemented (e.g. noise barriers, bet-ter drainage, animal crossings), which will reduce existing negative impacts during operation. These modernisation works will begin this year and are expected to be completed by the end of 2016.

The EIB strongly promotes sustainable transport solutions. Accordingly, the proj-ect will result in better quality rail services as well as help to reduce vehicle operat-ing costs and journey times. This should encourage the shift from other modes of

Dubai Silicon Oasis Authority (DSOA), the regulatory body for Dubai Silicon Oasis, the integrated free zone technology park, has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Polish Information and Foreign Investment Agency (PAIiIZ).

The MoU was signed by Dr. Juma Al Matrooshi, Executive VP Commercial at DSOA and Bozena Czaja, Board Member of PAIiIZ, in the presence of the U.A.E. Consul to Poland, Ahmed Abdalla Burhaima. The signing of the MoU came on the side-lines of a six day road-show in Poland organised by DSOA to promote DSO ‘s offerings as a technology hub for companies looking to expand their business into the region.

Designed to drive collaboration in tech-nology and innovation, the MoU mandates DSOA and PAIiIZ to facilitate the exchange of delegations, promote collaboration and investment opportunities, transfer knowledge, and work towards developing enabling business environments in the U.A.E. and Poland.

Dr. Juma Al Matrooshi said, “The U.A.E. and Poland share good bilateral relations and partnership initiatives in vibrant trade and investment fields. DSOA’s road-show to Poland was organ-ised to build on this synergy through exploring lucrative opportunities in the technology sector with private and public entities.

“The MoU signed with PAIiIZ is one of the key outcomes of our road-show. This agreement will allow us to identify areas

of collaboration in the ICT space with the aim of adding value to the capabilities of our existing and prospective partners.” Bozena Czaja said, “PAIiIZ continuously seeks opportunities to collaborate with friendly governments and like-minded or-ganisations towards enhancing Poland’s status as a key global trading partner. We are excited to partner with DSOA in the technology and innovation field and are confident we will enrich this relationship through diverse programmes and initia-tives that translate into greater economic gains for our countries.”

As part of DSOA’s visit to Poland, the delegation attended the fourth Eastern Poland Business Forum in Kielce, and vis-ited the Kielce Technology Park and the Special Economic Zone, Starachowice, as well as Krakow Technology Park. A wholly-owned entity of the Government of Dubai, Dubai Silicon Oasis operates as a free zone technology park for semicon-ductors, microelectronics and other elec-tronics-based companies looking to set up their regional headquarters and R&D divisions in the Middle East and North Africa region. n

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transport to rail and thus potentially re-duce the level of harmful emissions.

This project is a continuation of the EIB’s successful cooperation with PLK. Including the current operation, the Bank has provided ten loans to PLK totalling EUR 1.9 billion to finance railway moderni-sation projects across Poland. The Bank’s support provides high financial value add-ed to PLK by making available long-term financial resources at a lower funding cost.

In 2013, EIB financing in Poland amounted to EUR 5.7 billion, 18% of which was earmarked for rail and urban trans-port projects. The Bank has now helped to finance rail investments in Poland for 24 years – the first loan signed with a Polish counterpart was for a rail project. The Bank supports the improvement of both infrastructure (with PLK) and rolling stock (with the operating companies).

Google Campus for Entrepreneurs Heads to PolandAccording to an announcement in June, Google for Entrepreneurs is bringing Campus to Warsaw. Campuses are Google’s spaces for entrepreneurs to connect, learn and get mentorship, and build innova-tive startups. According to the announce-ment, posted by the Head of Google for Entrepreneurs Europe, Eze Vidra, the move to Poland is part of their “ongoing investment throughout the region.”

This is not the company’s first initia-tive in Poland. In Krakow, they previously launched the Google for Entrepreneurs Krakow program. They also launched the Digital Economy Lab with Warsaw University.

In the past couple of years, Poland’s en-trepreneurial scene has grown and attracted both domestic and international startups and investors. Warsaw’s low cost of living, quality of talent, and proximity to Europe’s largest tech city, Berlin, are major selling points. So it’s no surprise that Google chose the capital to bring Campus for Entrepreneurs.

“Our hope is that Campus Warsaw will supercharge tech entrepreneurs, strength-en the startup ecosystem, and encourage even more innovation in Poland,” said Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt.

In the region, they currently operate Campuses in London and Tel Aviv. Google for Entrepreneurs has over 60 programs in 110 countries.

Balamara Resources secures USD 5 million for Nowa Ruda coking coal projectBalamara Resources has secured a USD 5 million direct equity investment into its flagship Nowa Ruda Coking Coal Project in Poland to underpin ongoing resource drill-ing and feasibility works.

Balamara’s major shareholder, Hong Kong-based Ample Skill, has agreed to invest USD 5 million into Balamara’s local Polish subsidiary, Coal Holdings, which holds the rights over the Nowa Ruda Project.

The transaction will be subject to share-holder approval with funds to be transferred over a period of three months; USD 3 million post approvals and USD 1 million to be made each subsequent month thereafter.

Once completed, this investment will give Ample Skill a direct 15% equity inter-est in the Nowa Ruda Project along with a 37% stake in Balamara.

This investment in Coal Holdings re-flects a valuation in the Nowa Ruda Project of approximately USD 36 million, which is a strong endorsement of the significant prog-ress made by Balamara since acquiring the asset in July 2013, and greater than the com-pany’s current market cap of USD 32 million.

It also removes any necessity for a further capital raising and associated dilution at the Balamara corporate level over the near term.

The investment by Ample Skill is expected to cover the cost of completing the Nowa Ruda drilling and feasibility costs through to mid-2015, when it is targeting a decision to mine and project development funding.

The company is currently undertaking a 5-hole resource definition drilling program at Nowa Ruda in conjunction with consul-tants Wardell Armstrong International, and may add a further two holes to extend the JORC resource at the Lech deposit.

All drilling is expected to be completed by the end of 2014 with updates to the JORC resource to be published at various intervals during the year.

In parallel, Balamara is working through the Nowa Ruda Feasibility Study with pro-grams underway in all key areas, including infrastructure, mine planning, mine design, coal quality, environmental studies, discus-sions with potential off-take partners and potential funding solutions.

EnerCap Gets $54 Million for Polish Heat and Power InvestmentsEnerCap Capital Partners, a Czech Republic-based private equity company, received 40 million euros from Polskie Inwestycje Rozwojowe SA to invest in heat and power projects in central Europe.

Fiat Powertrain Technologies Poland received PLN 100 million from the European Regional Development Fund for the company’s new investment worth PLN 1 billion. Due to that 400 new jobs will be created in Silesia region. Under the new investment project, Fiat Powertrain Technologies Poland plants will intro-duce the production of an innovative 900cc Small Gasoline Engine (“SGE”) in the company’s plant in Bielsko-Biala. Fiat Powertrain Technologies will be the only one producer of this type of engine in the whole Fiat Group in Europe. The company was co-funded under the Measure IEOP “Support for investment of considerable importance to the economy”. n

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EnerCap seeks to raise about 350 mil-lion euros for its 10-year Exergy Efficient Energy Fund and as much as half of that may be invested in projects in Poland. It will focus on facilities that produce both heat and power from gas or biomass, with the heat being supplied to households via existing district networks.

The additional funds “will see up to 175 million euros of new investment into replacing or upgrading key Polish en-ergy infrastructure, which is vital for fu-ture growth,” Mariusz Grendowicz, chief executive officer at Polskie Inwestycje Rozwojowe, said in the statement.

The fund has attracted interest from other “significant potential” investors and it should reach 100 million euros in the third quarter, according to the statement. Following the first close this year, it ex-pects to keep the fund open for a year to achieve the full 350 million euros.

The Exergy Efficient Energy Fund (“E3F”), the new €350m energy infrastruc-ture fund being raised by EnerCap Capital Partners has signed a Letter of Intent with Polskie Inwestycje Rozwojowe S.A. (PIR S.A.) as the cornerstone investor.

The Exergy fund is a 10-year closed end private equity fund which will focus on investments in primarily new and exist-ing high efficiency cogeneration projects in Central Europe. In particular, the Fund is targeting to deploy 50% of its capital on project opportunities in Poland. PIR was established under the Polish Investments Programme in 2013 with the objective pro-viding funding to viable long-term infra-structure projects in Poland.

Mariusz Grendowicz, CEO of PIR, said, “Our investment of €40m into E3F will see up to €175m of new investment into replac-ing or upgrading key Polish energy infra-structure which is vital for future growth.”

Poland loses 1 billion USD invest-ment to Czech RepublicThe Czech Republic has beaten Poland to at-tract Nexen Tire Corp. to invest 829 million euros in its first plant in the European Union as the South Korean company expands out-side Asia.

“To win this new major investment, the Czech side has had to fight until the last moment against a competing Polish offer,” Czech Industry Ministry Jan Mladek told The Wall Street Journal. “Therefore we have chosen a mix of several incentives such as subsidies for creating new jobs, subsidies for strategic investments, tax breaks and a par-tial compensation for the local Czech admin-istration to buy an additional building plot to be used by Nexen.”

The beauty contest of investment aid to attract Nexen reflects greater competition among ex-communist countries in the EU’s east, who are competing to lure large, labor-intensive manufacturing investors and cre-ate jobs.

Before picking its Czech site near the city of Zatec, 90 kilometers west of Prague, the South Korean company also considered building its plant in the Polish town of Ujazd, 300 kilometers south of Warsaw near the Czech border.

Mr. Mladek and Nexen officials declined to provide specific details on the value of total investment incentives for the South Korean company. Both parties will release additional information on the incentive package next Wednesday at the signing cer-emony of the contract, Mr. Mladek added.

Large investors like Nexen can typically qualify for tax holidays or reduced profit taxes for up to 10 years and additional subsidies of about 5% of their total capital investments.

The South Korean company already supplies tires, manufactured in Asia, to several major car makers in the Czech Republic such as Hyundai Motor Co. Ltd. and Volkswagen AG’s unit Skoda Auto AS. Nexen also already sells its tires to the Slovak-based Hyundai’s affiliate Kia Motors Corp., but this move should help to cement the Czech Republic’s status as a car-making heavyweight in the EU.

Nexteer Automotive to Build EUR 80 Million Plant in PolandNexteer Automotive will invest almost PLN 335million in Tychy, where it will build a plant producing Electric Power Steering systems. The construction of the factory is to start this year and to finish at the turn of 2015 and 2016.”The decision to locate the new investment in Poland was primarily due to excellent quality of products manu-factured in our Polish factories, as well as favourable economic conditions offered by the Katowice Special Economic Zone,” Nexteer Automotive announced.

“The planned investment in Poland is to further strengthen the company’s posi-tion as a world leader in the manufacture of electrical control systems. The growing popularity of our control systems owes to their unique characteristics associated with the ability to create not only a com-fortable but also a secure car,” CEO of the company, Laurent Bresson, said.

Umicore to build emission control catalysts plant in PolandMaterials technology and recycling group Umicore has unveiled plans to set up an

emission control catalysts production fa-cility in Nowa Ruda, with an investment of approximately €40 million.

The project will allow Umicore to cater to the increasing demand for automotive catalysts from its European customers and will initially create more than 80 new jobs. The demand is driven primarily by the re-cent introduction of new emission legisla-tion in the European Union (EU), the com-pany said.

Work on the plant is expected to com-mence in July 2014 and planned to be completed in the beginning of 2016. The facility will be Umicore’s first industrial operation in Poland and will complement the company’s existing automotive cata-lyst production capabilities in Germany, France and Sweden. It will offer catalyst systems for light-duty and heavy-duty vehicles.

The plant will feature advanced equip-ment, including two production lines and all components and assets for logistics, quality assurance and analytical inspec-tion of products, as well as measures to minimise energy use and CO2 emissions. Umicore automotive catalysts business unit operations senior vice-president Franz-Josef Kron said: “The decision to invest in Nowa Ruda is the result of excel-lent cooperation with the local special eco-nomic zone and authorities, as well as with the Polish Government.”

Umicore activities are focused on four business areas, namely catalysts, energy ma-terials, performance materials and recycling, and has a workforce of 14,000. The company generated revenues of €9.8bn in 2013.

Warsaw to host meeting of Georgian-Polish intergovernmental commission Warsaw will host a meeting of the Georgia-Poland intergovernmental economic com-mission on July 1-2.

The Georgian Chamber of Trade and Industry said on Wednesday, June 18 that it plans to organize a business forum as part of the commission. The presentation of Georgia’s investment environment, as well as bilateral meetings between Georgian and Polish businessmen will be held at the forum.

Georgian government’s delegation in-cludes representatives of the ministries of economy and sustainable development, agriculture, energy, foreign affairs, and re-gional development and infrastructure.

The foreign trade turnover between Georgia and Poland stood at $96 million in 2013, according to the National Statistics Office of Georgia.

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Kenya, Poland ready for more businessKenya and Poland have signed a Memorandum of Understanding that will see both countries increase their trade rela-tions. The agreement will see more Polish in-vestors set up shop in Kenya by giving them trade incentives while on their side, allowing more imports from Kenya.

The deal was signed between the National Chambers of Commerce and Industry from both countries where Polish companies plan to venture into the agriculture, mining and pharmaceutical sectors in the country. The deal was signed in the presence of 18 Polish investors who are visiting Kenya.

On the other hand, Kenya plans to push for increased exports like tea and cof-fee to Poland as well as market tourism. Head of East Africa, Trade and Investment Promotion Counsellor Kinga Szafrankowska said they will first focus on Kenya before moving to the entire East African region. “I am absolutely convinced that this is the time to be in Kenya. We have come to visit, see and do business, because we are business people,” Szafrankowska said.

The delegation of 18 investors comes at a time when the country is experienc-ing security challenges, the latest being the Mpeketoni attack which claimed 48 lives in Lamu County. Szafrankowska is however optimistic that the issues of security will be solved at the government level adding that as investors, they are ready to do business in Kenya.

“The need for us as government is to edu-cate our companies in Poland, to give them proper information of the amazing possibili-ties which are in East Africa and especially in Kenya,” she added.

The delegation was received by Kenya National Chamber of Commerce and Industry Chairman Kiprono Kittony who called for more efforts from the government to provide security as more foreign investors were keen on doing business in Kenya.

“Security is an issue here but as far as ter-rorism in concerned, this is a global problem and I think the government is doing all it can to deal with it. On our side we will con-tinue to talk and encourage more investors to come because this is the time for Kenya and Africa,” Kittony said. In 2012 the trade balance between Kenya and Poland stood at Sh909.4million which he said is too low.

Ericpol in major expansionBy the end of the year, Ericpol plans to employ 250 people. Demand for new em-ployees is due to the increased activity of the company in the public procurement market and to the expansion on DACH

markets (Germany, Austria, Switzerland). Ericpol has invested PLN 60m to build new headquarters in Łódź within the ŁSEZ. Ericpol is one of the leading Polish ITC companies offering IT consulting and pro-viding dedicated solutions for telecommu-nications, medical, banking and finance sectors. Ericpol has 3 offices in Poland.

Thai firm Indorama in €20 million expansionIndorama Ventures Ltd., part of global PET resin giant Indorama Group, is invest-ing around €20m to expand capacity at its Polish PET plant in Włocławek to meet growing demand particularly in Eastern Europe. This year, the Thai company is carrying out significant debottlenecking to the production process at the facility which currently has total output of 153,000 tpa of bottle-grade PET resin chips.

Formal official planning consent for the project, which when completed is expected to create around 30 new jobs, was recently given for the plant located in the Pomeranian Special Economic Zone. It was back in November 2012 that Indorama decided it would carry out the debottlenecking programme instead of installing new line at its Polish operation. This approach, it argued would help to build greater value there making the site more ef-ficient. The Polish site, created in 2002, is part of an acquisition from the South Korean SK Chemicals in March 2011.

Indorama is the world’s biggest PET chips producer.

Special Economic Zones expanding The Polish Council of Ministers extended five special economic zones – Legnica SEZ, Kostrzyn- Slubice SEZ, Pomeranian SEZ, Katowice SEZ and Słupsk SEZ. According to zones’ estimations, due to that deci-sion PLN 1.8 billion will be invested and 950 new jobs can be created there. Areas of the Katowice Special Economic Zone are extended the most by over 346 hectares. New investments are represented by auto-motive, glass and metal sectors. Pomerania SEZ got bigger by 410 hectares. New ar-eas covered by SEZs programme include: Stargard Szczeciński and Czarna Woda. Under the existing plant in Czarna Woda, Steico will create an innovative production line of laminated veneer lumber.

Legnica SEZ will increase by 156 hect-ares and will add two automotive invest-ments. Faurecia will build a production line to manufacture innovative decorative elements of dashboards and door panels for premium cars, while in Głogów Sitech will implement modern technologies for the production of car seat frames designed

in the R&D process provided by inves-tors. The next extended zone, Kostrzyn – Słubice SEZ, increased by over 79 hectares, allowing Kronopol to expand and moder-nise its plant of wood products. In addi-tion, over 7 hectares of Czarne commu-nity have been covered by Słupsk Special Economic Zone. Meble Negro will expand and modernise its furniture plant there.

Two New Investors in Tarnow SEZ In Wrocław Kobierzyce subzone of the Tarnobrzeg SEZ, LAPP Group Polska has lo-cated its office while Łuksja has opened the company’s new office in Łuków subzone. Lapp Cable Company is one of the world’s leading suppliers of cables and cable acces-sories for mechanical engineering, automo-tive industry and measurement and control technologies devices. The company pro-vides production in 17 factories located in Europe, America and Asia. The second in-vestor Łukja is one of the biggest manufac-turer and exporter of garments from east-ern Poland. It cooperates with such global brands as Burberry and Max Mara.

New Investors in WałbrzychNearly PLN 9.3m will be invested together by two companies that have received permits to conduct business in Wałbrzych Special Economic Zone. In Kudowa-Zdroj, the next investment of Wemeco Poland specialising in steel, stainless steel and aluminum manu-facturing will be established. It is the third permit for the Dutch investor in the WSEZ. The company will invest at least PLN 2.5m in the development of the plant and its ma-chine park as well as will hire 10 new people. Meanwhile, IMOLA will invest PLN 6.8m in the construction of a plant and warehouse. The investor will produce plastic packaging. 27 new jobs will be created under this project.

IMKA to invest 90 million plnIn Kamiennagóra Special Economic Zone for Small Business, IMKA will invest PLN 90m and increase employment to 750 people. Currently, the plant employs 450 people. The new investment of IMKA will cover nearly 9 hectares of fully prepared plot. The company plans to construct a production hall, a warehouse, an office building and the purchase of new produc-tion lines and machinery plot. IMKA is one of Europe’s leading producers of wet wipes used for health-care, hygiene and disinfection. Through the new investment and implementation of innovative tech-nologies, the company wants to improve the quality and the volume of offered prod-ucts. The investor also plans to start man-ufacturing disinfectants and creams.

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Kraków Technology Park brings in 46 million pln of new projectsKraków Technology Park issued next per-mits to conduct business in Kraków Special Economic Zone. In total, companies plant to invest PLN 46 million and create 39 new jobs. This is the second investment permit for PROTECH. Under the investment the company plans to spend PLN 20 million to build a warehouse and buy a machine park. Two companies - Frapol and Allpro - will invest in Niepołomice subzone. They both will build production halls and equip them with modern machinery. Frapol plans to spend about PLN 15m, and will create 10 new jobs. Allpro plans to invest PLN 6 m and hire 12 new employees. Unimetal Recycling, specialising in recovery of pre-cious metals for use in the process of pro-duction of automotive catalytic converters, will invest PLN 3m and create 10 new jobs. Under the investment of Strobos a new plant of warning lamps will be built. The investment costs have been estimated at PLN 2 m. Since the beginning of the year, Kraków Technology

Park has issued 14 new expansion permits.

New Investments in Euro-Park WISŁOSANIn EURO-PARK WISŁOSAN Special Economic Zone in Tarnobrzeg, investors will launch projects worth in total about PLN 200m. They also plant to create 80 new jobs. The Industrial Development Agency issued five new business permits. ATI ZKM Forging and ALSECO together will invest PLN

159m and employ at least 60 people. ATI ZKM Forging will modernise and expand its production line of chassis’ components, aviation engines and locomotive diesel en-gines. On the other hand, ALSECO will build a metal foundries plant in the zone. By in-vesting PLN 24m, Marma Plast will build a production hall and warehouse facility

and modernise the existing buildings. The company also plants to employ 10 people. Alumetal Poland and Danpol Danielak will invest about PLN 13.5m and create 6 new jobs. Alumetal Poland will launch the production of master alloys while Danpol Danielak will produce plastic caps for pharmaceutical in-dustry and other clients.

6 new Investors in Łódź SEZSix companies will provide investment proj-ects in Łódź SEZ worth in total PLN 102.5m. Together they will create 105 new jobs. For the second time, SFB Polska received a permit to conduct business. This time the company will spend PLN 5m to buy equipment for the new-ly built production hall and warehouse. New research laboratory will be also opened there. 10 new employees will find a job there. The second investor – Meyer Tool IGT – will pro-duce turbines and components for the aero-space industry there. The investment costs are estimated at PLN 20.6m. 30 new workers will be employed there. In Subzone Radom, Logistyka 24 will offer its logistic services sup-plying Inter Cars in Warsaw with spare parts for cars, trucks and motorcycles. The invest-ment will cost PLN 1.5m. Due to that at least 10 new employees will be hired. CEDROB, op-erating in the meat processing industry, will undertake an investment project worth PLN 40m and will hire 30 new employees. For the second time Grupa Paradyż - one of the lead-ing Polish produces of ceramic floor tiles and porcelain stoneware - will invest in the zone. The company will spend over PLN 25 million and recruit at least 10 new employees. Kapela – the producer of innovating LED lighting systems - will invest PLN 4.5m and employ at least 20 new employees.

Warmia and Mazury SEZ expanding On 3 June, the Council of Ministers ad-opted a regulation expanding the area of the Warmia- Mazury Special Economic Zone. More than 30 hectares of land will be included in the zone and three new

investments will be located there. In total, new investors will spend PLN 435 million and create 360 new jobs. The largest dairy cooperative in Poland - MLEKPOL - plans to establish milk and whey processing plant in Mragowo and implement new technologies there. The company will spend PLN 130m, and will employ 90 people. Additionally, POLMLEK operating in the same sector as MLEKPOL, is preparing to invest PLN 150m in Lidzbark and hire 70 new employees. The company plans to purchase the most mod-ern technological production lines for dry-ing whey. The third investor - ILS which is a part of the InterCars group, one of the leaders of car components’ supplier - plans to create a modern, logistics centre that will operate the Group’s logistics operations in Polad and Europe. To do that the company is planning to invest PLN 155m and employ 200 people.

Nearly PLN 185 million in Wałbrzyska SEZNearly PLN 185m will be invested and 98 new jobs will be created by three compa-nies in Wałbrzyska SEZ. Polish company VascoDoors will build a production hall and equip it with the production lines for door-frames and furniture components manufac-turing. The value of investments will reach PLN 10 million. The second investor Libra will spend PLN 15 million and create 10 new jobs for its new production facilities. The third company, Umicore Autocat Poland, will build a catalytic converters plant. This Belgian company will create 80 new jobs. The investment will cost PLN 160 million.

Ceramic tiles production draws in 70 million pln investment CERRAD will invest PLN 70m in Starachowice SEZ for the development of the company’s plant and the creation of 10 new jobs. The project is dedicated to the expan-sion of a ceramic tiles production. The proj-ect should be completed by 2018. n

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Germany-based Sport Saller be-comes supplier of football club Lechia GdańskThe deal covers the upcoming 2014/15 Ekstraklasa season and is set to run to at least June 2016.

The cooperation arranged by Sportfive, the marketing agent for the Polish Football Association (PZPN), allows Sport Saller to enter the Polish supplier market. Heiko Saller, of Sport Saller’s production and sales department, commented: “The Polish market is very attractive for us. Our part-nership with the traditional Ekstraklasa club Lechia Gdańsk will boost our repu-tation in Poland and attract our target groups’ attention.”

Lechia Gdańsk’s president, Bartosz Sarnowski, added: “Sport Saller is one of the top brands in team sports retail. The new collaboration gives us a variety of op-tions that we intend to put into action to-gether with our new supplier.”

Throughput of port Gdansk surges 15% in Jan-May 2014 periodFor the period January-May 2014, the port of Gdansk handled 13,175,428 tonnes of

cargo (+15%, year-on-year), the stevedor-ing company says. Transshipment of grain climbed 1.6 times to 706,414 t, general cargo and timber – by 9.3% to 4,713,155 t, other bulk cargo (aggregates, sulphur, ore) – up 1.5 times to 1,325,031 t, coal transship-ment fell 1.4 times to 1,500,460 t, trans-shipment of liquid fuel increased by 33.2% to 4,930,368 t.

The port of Gdansk has become a major international transportation hub, with new direct connections to China handled by DCT Gdansk. Besides handling bulk car-goes (oil, coal, metal ores) the port provides a number of line services linking it with the ports of the Baltic Sea and Western Europe (primarily ferry, construction and ro-ro lines). In 2013, the port handled 30,259,295 t of cargo.

‘Giant mole’ completes Gdansk tunnelA vast tunnel boring machine (TBM) has completed the second lane of a 1 km-long tunnel under a branch of the River Vistula in Gdansk. Mayor of Gdansk Pawel Adamowicz and Minister of Development and Infrastructure Elzbieta Bienkowska

attended a ceremony in mid-June marking the close of the TBM’s work.

The tunnel is the final stage of a new road connecting the city’s Lech Walesa Airport and Gdansk’s port on the Baltic. The entire cost amounts to 1.5 billion zloty (365 mil-lion euros), over two thirds of which came from EU funds. Adamowicz described the investment as “extremely important,” argu-ing that the connection with the port will consolidate Gdansk’s status an important economic player in the Baltic region.

The tunnel is the first venture of its kind in Poland that has been carried out with the use of a TBM. The machine, which has a length of 90m and a diameter of 12m, was specially constructed in Germany, and is one of the largest of its type in the world. It is expected that the tunnel will be open to traffic within twelve months.

Fitch Affirms ZKM Gdansk’s RatingsFitch Ratings has affirmed Poland-based Zaklad Komunikacji Miejskiej w Gdansku Sp. z o.o.’s (ZKM) Long-term Default Rating at ‘BBB-’ and its National Long-term rating at ‘A(pol)’. Fitch has also affirmed ZKM’s PLN220m tram and PLN60m bus revenue bond programmes and their bonds at Long-term local currency rating ‘BBB’ and at National Long-term rating ‘A+(pol)’.

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Key Rating Drivers Based on the top-down approach under public-sector entities rating criteria, the rat-ings of the revenue bond programmes and ZKM are respectively one and two notches lower than the ratings of ZKM’s sole owner, the City of Gdansk (BBB+/Stable). The one notch differential between the revenue bond programmes and the City of Gdansk’s ratings reflects the lack of an explicit guar-antee for the bond programmes issued by the city. Yet, a support agreement links their ratings to that of the city. ZKM’s rat-ings are two notches lower than the city’s rating to reflect the lower legal protection of non-bondholders compared with revenue bondholders.

The bondholders have a first claim on revenues. This provides preferential treat-ment as far as the timeliness of repayment is concerned. In addition the bondholders have a pledge on venture assets, excluding them from the bankruptcy estate, which in case of liquidation subordinates non-bond-holders. The multiyear contract for bus and tram transport services between the city and ZKM provide the company with over 90% of its total revenue. ZKM’s investment

plan for 2014-2016 foresees spending of about PLN 102 million in total, which is modest compared with the extensive bus and tram projects worth PLN 392 million finalised in 2012. The company over the medium term plans to focus on renewing its transportation fleets to maintain a high level of services.

Finn World Masters attracts over 250 entrantsThe 2014 Finn World Masters Championship in Sopot had 221 confirmed entries from 27 countries, with over 250 entries submitted. Racing took place on June 9-13. The racing took place on the Gulf of Gdañsk, protected from the wider Baltic by Hel’s Peninsula which circles from the north round the bay to the east of Sopot. This makes the waters off Sopot’s beaches much warmer than oth-er places in the Baltic.

The great equaliser of the Masters event is that every year new sailors qualify just by getting older. So new faces appear and try to challenge the established order of things, while the older faces try to hang onto their youth, even if it hurts a little bit more than it did this time last year.

Michael Maier (CZE) attempted an his-toric sixth Finn World Masters title. This year he is also a Grand Master for the first time. Three time champion Andre Budzien (GER) defended his Grand Masters title.

Three times medalist Allen Burrell (GBR) was also back. Other top ten finishes from last year include the 1988 Finn Gold Cup winner Thomas Schmidt (GER) and Tauras Rymonis (LTU), but there were also some new contenders sailing their first Finn World Masters.

Sailors travelled from far and wide for this championship, including teams from New Zealand, Australia, South Africa and the USA. Ray Hall (NZL) finished 11th place last year, while Henry Sprague (USA) is present, 40 years after he won the Finn Gold Cup.

As usual Germany provided the largest team with 59 entries, with 38 from The Netherlands, 26 from Russia and 20 from Great Britain. In terms of age category there are 69 Masters (39-49), 89 Grand Masters (50-59), 54 Grand Grand Masters (60-69) and an amazing 23 Legends (70+). They say, ‘Once a Finn sailor, always a Finn sailor’, and this is never more true than with the Legends of the Finn Masters.

Andy Denison (GBR) the President of the Finn World Masters, commented, “This is our first time in Poland and I’m really pleased with the uptake of 221 paid entries from 27 countries. The usual fun was had, with the Saturday opening ceremony, a drinks party on the Tuesday, courtesy of Mount Gay Rum, a great ladies programme, and there was also the annual dinner and great op-portunities for old and new friends to catch up. When Poland was first mentioned as a candidate, we were all intrigued. However what we were not aware of was this beauti-ful, jewel of a place called Sopot, situated on the golden coastline adjacent to Gdansk. My sincere thanks are extended to club Hestia and all the people involved in this event. The Organising Authority has been extremely helpful in the months leading up to the event which gave us a truly professional, and slick, 2014 Finn Masters World Championship.” n

SzczecinOff-shore wind farm factory to employ 500 peopleAbout 500 people, mostly welders, ma-chinists, steel assemblers and machine op-erators will be employed on the island of Gryfia in Szczecin, to produce foundations for offshore wind farms.

On the island one can already see steel structures rising for the factory produc-tion halls - worth 400 million pln. Bilfinger and Crist Offshore are shareholders, along with support from the Polish Industrial Development Agency.

All the foundations of reinforced con-crete for the main halls are already in place. Currently, workers are building two aisle halls, which will be 240 meters long, and its upper part 42 meters tall, almost as

much as a fourteen-floors. Later this year, is expected to create a third nave hall, then the entire main space will be ready. Its sur-face area amounts to more than 2 hectares.

"This will be the largest production plant in the country with a capacity of 1.1 million cubic meters. By comparison, I will add that a large single-family house has an average of 1,000 cubic meters volume" - said the head of construction Waclaw Postol.

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ŁódźSeven bidders pitch to build new Widzew Łódź stadium – one winsSeven consortia of construction compa-nies submitted bids to build a new stadium for Poland’s Widzew Lodz. The facility will have a capacity of between 15,000 and 18,000. The winning bid was the lowest bid, for PLN 120 million (€28.6m) - placed by local construction company PRMM Lodz. The highest bid, worth PLN 211.6 million (€50.4m), was submitted by a consortium formed by Poland’s SKB and Germany’s Baugeselschaft Walter Hellmich.

Other bidders include consortia of Porr Poland and NDI, Warbud and Eurovia Poland, Mirbud and Mota-Engil Central Europe, as well as bids by Budimex, and Mostostal Warsaw.

The investment in a new stadium comes at a time when Widzew is trying to avoid relegation from the Ekstraklasa, the top tier of Poland’s professional football league.

Should the club get relegated to the Liga I, Lodz, which nominally remains Poland’s

second largest city with a population of more than 700,000, will lose its only rep-resentation in the Ekstraklasa. LKS, the city’s second major football club, current-ly plays in the IV Liga, and was relegated from the Ekstraklasa in 2012.

The latest tender marks a third attempt by the Polish city to build a new stadium for the troubled football club which has been struggling to stay financially afloat. A lease deal between Lodz and Widzew is to be signed for a period of up to 30 years.

The winning bidder will rebuild a road system around the stadium. It is estimat-ed that the project will be implemented for 28 months. The first works are expected to begin later this year.

The case of the new stadium at al. Pilsudski stretches from the beginning of 2008, when the club owner announced plans with private money to build a facility for 19,000 spectators. The club, however, withdrew from the idea, at the same time announcing that he wants to have a stadium for 30,000 spectators and money from the city to build such a facility.

Magistrate suggested the implementation of investments in public-private partnership.

In March 2012, the search began for the en-tity that would be interested in entering into a contract for the design, construction, fi-nancing and operation of the stadium, com-mercial space and parking. The project was to cost around 300 million zł.

The city declared a financial contribu-tion in the amount of 101 million zł, trans-fer of land worth about 30 million zł and rebuilding - for 24.5 million zł - the traffic system around the stadium. The rest of the building was to be financed by the private partner.

After two unsuccessful tenders, the city authorities changed the concept. In May 2013 it was announced that the govern-ment will provide 151 million zł for con-struction of the municipal stadium for 18,000 spectators.

10 new companies in Łódź SEZ - create 455 jobsAt least 455 jobs will create 10 investors, who have received permission to invest in the Łódź Special Economic Zone. Among them are small enterprises and large corpo-rations in industries such as, among others,

The largest of gateways that will be in-stalled will be greater than the gateway to the hangars for airplanes. Cranes for lifting components of wind towers will be 130 feet tall and will be twice larger than the gantry from the closed shipyard in Szczecin.

In addition to the work associated with the construction of halls are also hydro works, road construction and installation. Nearly 250 construction workers will be onsite each day.

In order to accommodate the project, the island of Gryfia was reinfored with 60,000 tons of sand to strengthen and improve the area. The cost of construction of the plant is 400 million pln, of which 77 million is a grant from the Innovative Economy Operational Programme. The end of con-struction is scheduled for mid-2015. The main customers are to be German and British companies.

The company Bilfinger Crist Offshore is a partnership between German company Bilfinger (62.5 percent), and MARS Closed Investment Fund, and the Industrial Development Agency.

Bilfinger is one of the largest international groups that provide services to the construc-tion industry. It generates annual revenue of 8.6 billion euros. Industrial Development Agency is wholly owned by the Treasury. Crist is a manufacturer of specialized

equipment for shipbuilding, hydro-technical equipment and floating objects.

Gaz-System have permission to use the pipeline Swinoujscie-SzczecinGaz-System has received from the West Pomeranian governor permission to use the high pressure gas transmission pipeline re-lationships Swinoujscie-Szczecin, the com-pany said. The pipeline will allow the con-nection of an LNG terminal in Swinoujscie to the Polish transmission network.

"The pipeline Swinoujscie-Szczecin is one of the most important elements of the national gas transmission system. Completed investment is directly related to the emerging liquefied natural gas ter-minal (LNG) terminal in Swinoujscie. The pipeline will connect the LNG terminal with the Polish gas transmission network in the area Goleniow".

The value of expenses associated with the construction of the pipeline was ap-proximately 245 million pln, of which the projected subsidy is up to 50% of eligible expenditure, derived from the EU’s "European Energy Programme for Recovery" (EERP). The finished pipeline is also part of the development of cross-border transmission infrastructure in the Baltic Sea (Baltic Interconnection).

The pipeline with a length of about 80 km, 800 mm diameter and operating

pressure of 8.4 MPa, runs through the West Pomeranian province - the city of Swinoujscie and municipalities: Swinoujscie, Wolin, Stepnica and Goleniów.

Gaz-System announced that it has signed with the European Investment Bank (EIB) an agreement to provide in-vestment loan with a maximum amount of 410 million pln for the financing of the proposed gas pipeline Lwówek - Odolanów. The whole project is worth 850 million pln.

Gas Transmission Operator Gaz-System is a strategic company for the Polish econ-omy, responsible for the transmission of natural gas and the management of the main gas pipelines in Poland.

LNG Terminal in Swinoujscie will be on time The LNG terminal in Swinoujscie will be ready in time for next year to begin com-mercial gas receipts - so said Treasury spokeswoman Agnieszka Jablonska. She added that the construction of the LNG terminal will be complete at the turn of the year. This is despite leaked transcripts by former Vice President of PGNiG Andrzej Parafinowicz that its start may be as late as 2017, two years after the deadline. Prime Minister Donald Tusk declared that he does not share the pessimistic scenario. Construction of the terminal cost three billion dollars. n

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PoznańLech Poznań extends sponsorship deal with betting operator STSLech Poznań has extended its sponsorship deal with Polish betting operator STS by a further two years. STS is using its spon-sorship to launch the first TV advertising campaign by a betting operator on Polish television. With advertising betting for-bidden on television under Polish law, STS will focus its campaign on its support of the football club, and not its business activity.

"The contract is extended by one year, until the end of the 2014/2015 season," said a statement.

The amount of the new deal was not disclosed. For the previous year-long con-tract, Lech recevied about PLN 2.5 million

(€600,000). The STS logo will continue to appear on the squad’s shirts and on LED screens installed at Lech’s stadium in Poznan.

"We are very satisfied with our coopera-tion, not only because we have been able to achieve our goals. It is important to us that we can support Polish sport, which is part of the strategic efforts made by STS," said Mateusz Juroszek, chief executive of STS. "We hope that the next year of our collabo-ration will be at least as successful as the previous year, both in the field of business and sport."

The new television advertisement will feature former footballer Piotr Reiss, one of Lech’s most known players who also played for Hertha Berlin and MSV Duisburg.

Betting companies are becoming a fer-tile ground for Polish clubs. Gornik Zabrze

recently signed a two-year main sponsor-ship deal with betting operator Totolotek. The firm was the first company to launch betting services in the Polish market. Lech Poznan have signed a new kit deal with Nike and extended their existing sponsor-ship agreement with betting operator STS.

Nike replaces German brand Puma as the Ekstraklasa club’s kit manufacturer, with the agreement covering the team’s se-nior and youth teams. Exact terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

VW Poznan Wielkopolska will em-ploy 10,000 people in 2016 10,000 workers will be hired by VW Poznan after building its new factory in September, where by 2016 the company will produce the car VW Crafter. With the operation in Wrzesnia to account for $ 800 million investment, preparations are also underway to expand the factory Poznan-Antoninek, which is conditioned by the adoption of the amendments to the zoning plan. Ultimately, the Wrzesnia plant will build about 100,000 VW Crafter cars per year.

Major Waste-to-Energy project underway in PoznanWaste to Energy technology manufacturer, Hitachi Zosen Inova (HZI) has been given notice to proceed to build a waste to energy plant for the Polish city of Poznan in con-sortium with Hochtief.

The company explained that the new fa-cility is the centre piece of Poland’s largest Public Private Partnership project to date, and HZI’s first waste to energy project in the country. The waste to energy plant is scheduled to go into operation in mid-2016.

BPO, IT or building ceramics. Authorization was given to: Digital One BPO, Logiq Rożko, Organic Car, Fujitsu Technology Solutions, Meyer Tool IGT Logistics 24, Cedrob, Paradyż, Kapella and BSH Home Appliances. New investments will be in the Lodz region: four in Lodz, as well as Łowicz, Koluszky, Tomaszow Mazowieckie and Radomsk and Kalisz and Raciąż (Mazovia province). In total, the companies will in-vest more than 208.6 million pln.

Special Economic Zone President Tomasz Sadzyński stressed that inves-tors are from very different sectors - from small, creative businesses to large multina-tionals that operate in industries such as business services and IT, food processing, manufacture of components for aerospace, and building ceramics.

In his view, good cooperation between local governments, and investors zone means that companies in the Lodz region feel well, as evidenced by the fact that in addition to new projects, firms are rein-vesting. He announced once again that this year could be a record year for the Lodz area, and that by the end of June may be issued up to 30 permits to operate.

Of the companies, which were given per-mission most jobs - at least 250 – will be created by Fujitsu Technology Solutions in Lodz. Its director David Deane said in an interview with reporters that the company continues its growth strategy, and Lodz - in his opinion - is a good place to do business. BSH Home Appliances will invest the most for expansion of its plant in Łódź – spend-ing at least 76 million zł, and pledged to

maintain employment at the level of 700 employees.

Also, the SEZ signed a letter of intent on cooperation between the Zone and the Lodz branch of the Agricultural Property Agency for various joint promotional ac-tivities concerning investment areas. The Zone will buy land ANR for future investments.

In its 17 years of existence, the Zone has issued a total of 249 permits, and investors realized a total investment of more than 10.8 billion zł, creating nearly 29,000 jobs. In May 2014, the zone was expanded by 11 hectares and now has a total of 1,302 hect-ares. Changing borders allow for the im-plementation of five new investments for more than 256 million zł, and the creation of 590 new jobs. n

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Katowice4YouAirlines - new Polish airline in KatowiceThe new Polish charter airline 4YouAirlines has established its base at the International Airport in Pyrzowice (Katowice). 4YouAirlines line was established on the initiative of local entrepreneurs, mainly related to the travel agency Alfa Star SA. The airport has already received the company’s three Airbus A320 aircraft. The aircraft, with 180 seats, is leased from Ukrainian airline YanAir in the “ACMI” formula (aircraft, crew cockpits, maintenance and insurance). This is the fourth charter car-rier who chose Katowice as its base, including the Polish EnterAir, Lithuanian Small Planet Airlines and Canadian CanJet”, according to the Upper Silesian Aviation Authority, which manages the airport.

Pyrzowice airport as the center of the southern Polish charter sector is the stron-gest among domestic networks of regional airports - in the summer, tour operators and travel agencies offer from Katowice Airport holiday flights to 50 locations.

The airport is also a leader among regional airports for charter flights. In 2013, charter flights carried 760,000 passengers, and the forecast for 2014 assumes that this number will increase to about 820,000 passengers.

Piotr Uszok wants to build one mega-city – with Katowice firmly planted at its centre Piotr Uszok, President of Katowice, an-nounced that consolidation is necessary to create a single city combining the disparate populations of cities such as Myslowice, Sosnowiec, and Chorzow.

“I appreciate the idea of a single city. This is obviously a very serious political decision, difficult to implement, but it would be the optimal solution. And if there is one, classic, metropolitan city, it is the needs of Upper Silesia which could at least reach the scale of Warsaw”, Uszok said in an interview.

While large foreign investors have some-times been confused by names such as Sosnowiec and Siemianowice, the “pitch” has long been that the region surrounding Katowice is Poland’s largest urban group-ing, with nearly 6 million inhabitants within a 45-minute radius.

The president argues that associations of municipalities – such as the GZM - do not work when it comes to ensuring the development and investment of the region.

The aim of the initiative is to build a large metropolis based around Katowice, with a structure similar to the city of Warsaw, where the Mayor rules over multi-ple districts (“dzielnicy”), and each district elects its own president.

Yet the dozen local governments in Silesia have a hard time agreeing to such an arrange-ment – and abdication of their local power. While some voices are in favor, cities such as Gliwice, Tychy, Sosonowiec, Siemianowice, and Ruda Slask are clearly against.

An alternative to one mega-city is three smaller cities – Katowice, Sosnowiec, and Gliwice – that aggregate their smaller brethren.

In the meantime, city elections are on the horizon (October 2014).

TDJ Estate investment planning retail space in KatowiceTDJ Estate is preparing for its third invest-ment in Katowice. The company purchased

a construction plot located at 1 Rzepakowa St. The seller is GC Investment.

The property covers the total area of about 2ha and was previously acted as the bus base of „Przedsiębiorstwo Komunikacji Samochodowej w Katowicach S.A.” (PKS, Motor Transport Company).

Now TDJ Estate plans to build there a retail and service center covering a few thousand square meters. The company is going to apply for necessary administra-tive permissions in the weeks to come. „Our actual projects are diversified and each of these investments are addressed very strictly and answer market needs”, said Maciej Wójcik, CEO of TDJ Estate.

Recently, the company has started the investment process regarding the „DOKP” building located in the close proximity of „Spodek”. The property was purchased last year and the City Hall of Katowice has al-ready issued a permit to demolish the 72-me-ters high office facility. Two new mixed-use buildings (offices and other commercial pur-poses) will be erected in the place of „DOKP”.

In the middle of April, TDJ Estate com-menced the construction work on the first stage of the „Franciszkańskie” housing estate. The facilities will house 95 apart-ments with balconies, terraces or gardens. Layouts of the housing units range from 27 to 80 sq. meters. The stage is scheduled for delivery in the first half of 2015. n

With a capacity of 210,000 tonnes of waste a year, an electrical production of up to 18 MW and a district heating output of up to 34 MW. According to HZI, the new plant will make a substantial contribution to the local supply of energy, fully meeting the EU’s expectations in terms of the efficient production of energy from waste.

The notice to proceed for the works on site for the Poznan project was issued by SITA Zielona Energia, a joint venture

between SITA Polska - a subsidiary of SUEZ Environnement - and Maguerite Fund. The City of Poznan has entrusted SITA Zielona Energia with the design, con-struction, financing, and operation of the plant over a period of 25 years.

Under its leadership of HZI explained that consortium partners Hochtief Polska and Hochtief Solutions will be responsible for the civil works design and construction of the plant. HZI said that on an Engineering,

Procurement and Construction (EPC) basis, it will design, deliver, and install the entire process technology including the Inova grate, and DyNOR, a proprietary SNCR system that reduces nitrogen dioxide levels well below the set emission limits – with minimum ammonia slip.

Completing HZI’s package of plant tech-nology is a modern bottom ash treatment plant enabling efficient recovery of the metallic residues in the bottom ash n

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KrakówThree plastics producers to invest in KrakowThree plastics producers have announced plans to build new production facilities in southern Poland. This was enabled by the re-cent decision to expand the Krakow special economic zone (KSSE) by close to 884,000 square metres, the Polish government’s press service said in a statement.

The three investments are to be completed by the end of 2018.

Italian manufacturer CFP Flexible Packaging is aiming to build a new plant which will make BOPA film. Under its PLN 156m (€37.7m) investment, the producer will create 35 new jobs in the zone.

Meanwhile, Germany’s plastic compound-er Akro-Plastic will take on 38 new employ-ees as part of its planned investment of at least PLN 53.5m (€13m). The firm’s product portfolio includes PA, PA/ABS, PA/PBT, PP, PK and PEEK, according to data released by Akro-Plastic.

"The company aims to build a new produc-tion facility and fit it with a modern machine park," the statement said.

The third investment is to be carried out by Polish company PPUH Styropmin which aims to build a new EPS production facility. The project is estimated to be worth some PLN 20m (€4.8m), and about 30 new jobs are to be created in the zone.

Capita Poland relocation threat sparks jobs fear

Worried employees of languages com-pany Capita fear they will lose their jobs if proposals to relocate the business to Poland go ahead. The language and translation ser-vices business, based in the UK, has started a four-week consultation period that has left workers worried for their future.

A Capita Translation and Interpreting spokesman said expanding the use of the company’s centre in Krakow could result in up to 30 local jobs being subject to redun-dancy. “We hope some employees will be able to find suitable redeployment oppor-tunities within Capita,” he said. Capita has 165 British staff and 210 worldwide and the proposals will not close the Delph centre. The firm supplies translators for the jus-tice system through government-funded contracts.

The mother of a 24-year-old employee, who has worked at Capita for over two years, has written to Business Secretary Vince Cable to express her disgust. “Out of the 40 or so that work at the Delph office, they have been told that between 24 and 27 will lose their jobs. I think they will let this first lot

go and then get rid of the rest quietly before they shut the office altogether,” she said.

Saddleworth entrepreneur Gavin Wheeldon set up Applied Language Solutions in 2003, and the company was bought by Capita in December 2011. Since then the company has been plagued by criticism fol-lowing “significant and repeated failings” that led to postponed court cases, suspects being released and compensation claims. A year ago the Ministry of Justice announced close monitoring of the contractor after a re-port on the first three months of its five-year contract revealed 3,833 unfulfilled requests for interpreters and 2,232 complaints.

Poland’s medical tourism clinics offer half-price treatment to the worldThe Polish government is promoting Poland as a world-class centre for medicine. The facilities would make any NHS manager en-vious. The doctors are experts with world-class success rates. The prices are often half what you’d pay at home. Why, then, are more European citizens not travelling to Poland to have routine medical treatments carried out?

For several years expat Poles have been re-turning home to get expensive dental work, plastic surgery and procedures such as hip replacements done at 30% to 60% of the cost they would pay in their adopted country.

Now a Polish government-backed initia-tive is promoting medical tourism into the country, targeting non-Poles from across the world, particularly those in Scandinavia, Germany, eastern Europe – and the UK. Those behind the plan hope Poland’s loca-tion at the heart of Europe – along with its plethora of low-cost flights, cheap accommo-dation, and attractive tourist cities such as Krakow – will be enough to tip the increas-ingly competitive battle for medical tourism in Poland’s favour.

The EU directive that came into force last year giving consumers the right to use health services in other European countries will only further its bid to become the medical tourism centre of Europe, officials hope.

At the very swish Dentestetica dental clinic on the outskirts of Krakow, one of the owners, Dr Krzysztof Gonczowski, tells his multilingual staff that their mission is to "drill, fill, and bill". He has developed a one-stop-shop business model that other Polish clinics are increasingly adopting.

His clinic is packed with the very latest equipment that makes your correspon-dent’s Hertfordshire NHS dentist look like something out of the dark ages – equip-ment, says Gonczowski, that enables his staff to offer the most sophisticated pro-cedures in a five-day window. Clients from

abroad typically save £2,500, making the £100 Ryanair flight look like an incidental cost.

"We offer clients the complete package – we pick them up at the airport and they can stay in our apartments next to the clinic," he says. "They can visit the beautiful city of Krakow while getting their treatment done by staff, who are absolute experts in their field. The treatment plan is designed to fit entirely around the customer."

Implants that cost around £2,500 in the UK can be had at Dentestetica for under £1,000, while ceramic veneers are half the £600 UK price.

Maciej Szarek, a financial adviser who has lived in Edinburgh for 12 years, was visiting last week and plans to return to the clinic lat-er in the year to have his problematic wisdom teeth removed: he expects to pay half the UK cost for the treatment, which will require the removal of part of his jaw.

"My local clinic in Edinburgh is fine for routine work, and the staff are nice, but you just have to look at the facilities here – it’s like another world. And financially it makes every sense."

At the busy Carolina Medical Centre, a three-hour train ride away in Warsaw, Adam Tarnawski shows off the clinic’s state-of-the-art MRI scanner, which has helped to make the centre – owned by Bupa – the go-to facil-ity for the nation’s professional athletes.

The site specialises in treating anterior cruciate ligament injuries, which have ended many footballers’ careers, and carried out 266 knee surgeries and 60 hip replacement last year. It will typically treat victims for around a third of the UK’s private treatment cost, but, despite that, Tarnawski is not keen to focus on the price.

"We are all about providing the highest-quality treatment, which also happens to be at a lower price," he says. If you want the lowest prices you will always find other clin-ics that will charge less. Our aim is to provide the best quality – but with savings."

Across Warsaw at the Swedish-owned Medicover centre – recently named Polish international hospital of the year – the facilities are even more plush, but there is curious absence of patients. The French managing director and other executives make a great play of how they have started benchmarking the 180-bed facility against the best US hospitals, to "drive standards to the highest level they can possibly be". Their low infection rates, they say, are greatly helped by the fact that hospital is under five years old and was purpose-built to be easy to clean. So far most of their non-Polish customers have largely come from Norway and Sweden.

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RzeszówAmerican companies come to Podkarpacie – Welcome to Miami!In 2015, the Subcarpathian Province will host an international conference and ex-hibition event with the participation of entrepreneurs from North and Latin America. Wladyslaw Ortyl, the Marshal of Podkarpacie and Marek Ustrobiński, Vice President of Rzeszow, signed such an agree-ment on this issue during his visit to the United States in Florida in late May.

The agreement was concluded with the Polish-American Chamber of Commerce of Florida and the Americas. Representatives

of local authorities Podkarpacie led a trade mission with the participation of compa-nies from the region, participating in the 35th Hemisphere Congress of Chambers of Commerce in Latin America, which took place in Coral Gables, Florida.

“We want our conference to be similar to that in which we participated in the United States. The purpose of the organi-zation of this project is linked to another, very large and important project – the new cargo connections between Rzeszów and Miami. I strongly believe that we will start the first cargo flights already in 2014”, said Marshal Ortyl.

“During this visit, we met with rep-resentatives of industry, among others,

Brazil, Argentina, Colombia. We presented an opportunity to invest in Rzeszow and the Subcarpathian region, we presented our special economic zones”, said Marek Ustrobiński.

Marshal Ortyl spoke with, among oth-ers, Carlos Lopez-Cantera, the vice-gov-ernor of Florida, Maria Dreyfus-Ulvert of Miami-Dade County and Patricia Arias, Executive Director CAMACOL, an orga-nization of 22 chambers of commerce in the Americas. He also had another work-ing meeting with representatives of the International Airport in Miami-Dade, when it was agreed the conditions neces-sary to inaugurate direct cargo flights from Rzeszow to Miami. n

According to Magdalena Rutkowska, who heads Poland’s medical tourism devel-opment programme, which is 75% funded by EU money, around 320,000 people vis-ited the country for treatment in 2012 – of which 42% came for plastic surgery, nota-bly breast implants. A third came to use dentists, while 9% came for obesity-related treatments such as gastric bands, which in Poland typically cost 40% of the €10,000 EU average.

"We understand that people have out-dated images of Polish medical facilities but

we are here to say we now have world-class facilities," she says.

"It amazes me that people can be asked to pay $100,000 for heart bypass surgery in the US, but they can fly nine hours to us, they can have as good or better treatment, and pay just $15,000."

She says success rates at Poland’s Bocian IVF clinic are 10% better than rivals in Spain, Germany and in the UK. IVF, which can be ruinously expensive in Britain, costs be-tween €2,000 and €3,000 per cycle – around a third of the cost of the cheaper UK providers.

Across the country clinics are being built, although Rutkowska admits that finding clients will be hard as countries around the world vie to grab medical tourism dollars. Turkey is moving fast into this arena, and there is already competition from India, Thailand, Malaysia and Lithuania. As a re-sult her next target is UK medical insurance firms, which have so far been reluctant to get involved. In July she is leading a trade mission to London in a bid to persuade in-surers to offer Poland as a destination.

Source: The Guardian

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KoreaKorea Day highlights Korean culture, business, and foodThe Embassy of the Republic of Korea, along with partners KOTRA, and multiple Korean businesses, hosted more than a thousand guests at a late-June Korea Day at Warsaw’s Agrikola park. The day-long picnic was opened by the Ambassador

Young Sun Paek, with additional com-ments from the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Dong-seok Kwon, Counsellor at the Embassy. More than 100 large and small Korean companies have invested in Poland, with the bulk in Poland’s south-west manufacturing region. The picnic featured Korean music, food, TaeKwonDo exhibition and multiple booths of spon-sors, including KIA Motors, LG, Samsung, Hyundai, KOTRA, and food importer/dis-tributor PanAsia. n

CanadaVisit of Minister of Foreign Affairs the Hon. John BairdThe Hon. John Baird, Canada’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, was in Poland in late May for official meetings that included a visit to the Auschwitz Nazi death camp, accompa-nied by Ambassador Bugailiskis. Minister Baird met later that day with Poland’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Radek Sikorski, for talks concerning Europe’s se-curity and the conflict between Ukraine and Russia.

In the evening, a reception was given by the Embassy later where Minister Baird spoke briefly of his meeting with Mr. Sikorski. Mr. Baird revealed that he had conveyed a message of Canada’s continu-ing desire to improve economic relations with Poland and to support efforts to en-sure Ukraine’s independence.

MiedziCopper Group in major drill-ing programsCompanies belonging to the MiedziCopper Group (a daughter company of world explo-ration giant Lumina Ca pital L.P.) are cur-rently executing a wide drilling program in southwestern Poland.

Two drillings (in the concession areas Nowa Sól and Sulmierzyce) are under way, and two others have been accomplished in March 2014 with positive results in Mozów and Janowo. In May 2014 the companies Ostrzeszów Copper, Zielona Góra Copper and Mozów Copper started drilling the next two projects.

The costs of the research program which has been implemented so far amounts to 100 million pln and current plans assume expenditure of an addi-tional 160 million pln. Over 300 workers and technical staff are employed on-site in execution of drillings, and several hundred more are involved on indirect basis (working e.g. for road construction or waste management companies). The mentioned projects do not however ex-haust MiedziCopper’s activity in Poland. In January 2014 the Group was assigned two more concession areas (Kotla and Bytom Odrzański). MCC is ready to start exploration works as soon as the Ministry’s decision becomes validated. Geological information achieved thanks to the research program combined with fiscal and legal conditions should give an answer whether construction of a cop-per mine in Poland will be economically justified.

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NATO allies conduct grenade train-ing in PolandParatroopers of the 173rd Airborne Brigade conducted a hand-grenade range here June 4 with paratroop-ers from Canada’s Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry and the Polish army’s 6th Airborne Brigade. The 173rd Abn. Bde., based out of Vicenza, Italy, serves as the Army contingency re-sponse force for Europe, responsible for executing the full range of military operations within 18 hours anywhere in Europe. Over the past several months, approximately 600 paratroopers from the brigade have been training in the region with NATO allies such as Poland and Canada to demonstrate U.S. com-mitment to the NATO alliance and sus-tain interoperability between military forces.

“Today we are going through a live hand grenade range” said Sgt. Eliseo Broche, gre-nade range instructor with the 173rd Abn. Bde. “This is the first time we are doing this range with the Canadian Army while here in Poland.”

Paratroopers of the 173rd Abn. Bde. and the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry met early in the morn-ing on the range, which was super-vised by the Polish Army, in what has become a normal collaboration of training between multiple nations since the initial deployment of NATO allies to train with Polish forces here in late April.

“The training here with the grenades is pretty much the same as we get in Canada,” said Cpl. Sebastian Uniat, a para-trooper assigned to Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry. “I like working with Americans; I’ve worked overseas with them a lot.”

The grenade training range and pre-vious multi-national training events have not only served as a means to stay combat proficient, but have also been a cohesion building experience for many, demonstrating the combined force’s capabilities.

“You learn a lot and see how other armies work, and later down the road you know what to expect,” said Uniat. Soldiers are slated to continue training in the region with allied forces through the end of the year. “The relationship be-tween each nation has shown us that we do a lot of things in the same manner,” said Broche. “There are also a lot of small things that are done differently, but we have been able to learn a lot from each other.” n

US (AmCham)4th of July Picnic5:30 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. At Polonia Stadium, AmCham’s Annual 4th of July Picnic cele-brates 238 years of American Independence and 25 years of Polish freedom.

AmCham Gdańsk meeting hosted by Port of Gdansk Authority With the AmCham Gdańsk meeting at the Port of Gdansk Authority, the AmCham continues to connect American investors in the region. The Gdansk port is a major international transportation hub, which is located in Europe’s fastest growing re-gions. According to the strategy of the EU, the Port of Gdansk plays a significant role as a key link in the Trans-European Transport Corridor No. 6 connecting the Nordic countries with Southern and Eastern Europe.

The event took place during a boat tour and it was kicked off with welcome notes by special guests Joanna Bensz, AmCham Board Member and Dorota Raben, President of the Board at Port of Gdańsk Authority S.A. Following the in-troductions, Michal Stupak from PGA SA Client Relations Department as well as Julian Skelnik, Director of the Marketing Department, talked about the Port’s fu-ture prospects, investment opportuni-ties and services connected with the use of port infrastructure. For the very first time members had a unique occasion to view terminals and facilities designed to handle containerized cargo and passenger ferries. The event participants were served lunch, compliments of the Port of Gdansk Authority, and enjoyed networking time while on the boat. During the final stage of the meeting the guests had a distinctive opportunity to view the impressive port area and facilities from the seaport control tower. The guests of the event included U.S. investors in the region, local entre-preneurs and guests from other regions of Poland as well as from abroad. n

Why Poland wants a U.S. military baseIn early June, as President Obama visited Poland, the U.S. announced that it would be spending $1 billion to boost its military presence in Eastern Europe. It’s a big step, but for some in Poland, it may not go quite far enough.

“For the first time since the Second World War, one European country has taken a province by force from another European country,” Radoslaw Sikorski, the Polish foreign minister, told the New York Times before Obama’s visit. “America, we hope, has ways of reassuring us that we haven’t even thought about. There are ma-jor bases in Britain, in Spain, in Portugal, in Greece, in Italy. Why not here?”

It’s a big proposition. Poland does have a small U.S. military presence, which was re-cently boosted with the arrival of 300 U.S. airmen and a dozen F-16 fighters for joint exercises this year. A major U.S. military base would be a major step up, however, and may be seen as contravening a 1997 NATO-Russia partnership that prohibited bases in Eastern Europe.

In many ways, Poland’s position is un-derstandable. There are obvious benefits to having a U.S. military base in Poalnd. U.S. troops in Poland can help offset Polish se-curity concerns, for example, and provide opportunities for more routine coopera-tion between U.S. and Polish troops. There are also economic factors: U.S. troops can spend money in the local communities, and the U.S. government may pay a lease on the land.

But there are bigger factors here for Sikorski. A U.S. military presence in Poland would be a forceful reminder that yes, the U.S. does still consider Poland a key ally, and yes, it is actually willing to stand up to Russia. That concept was called into question in 2009, when Obama scrapped plans for an anti-ballistic missile shield in Poland. At the time, Polish tabloid Fakt ran a front-page headline: “Betrayal! The U.S. sold us to Russia and stabbed us in the back.”

Recent events are putting the Poland-U.S. relationship under scrutiny again, none more so than Russia’s apparent will-ingness to get involved in the affairs of its neighbors has left many in Eastern Europe concerned. Poland of course has history with Russia, much of it pretty nasty (the Katyn massacre, for example), and much like Ukraine, Poland’s recent moves to in-tegrate with Europe and NATO have cre-ated new strains too. A 2013 poll conducted by the BBC World Service found that just 19 percent of Poles thought Russia’s influ-ence was positive, with 49 percent think-ing it negative.

Sikorski has been a key player in the Ukraine crisis, likely seeing parallels with Poland’s own Solidarity movement that saw the country shake itself free of Soviet influence. Some critics say his viewpoint of Russia is outdated (“Like the thinking

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of many onetime Solidarity activists,” Ola Cichowlas wrote at Foreign Policy recent-ly, “his inability to see Russia as anything other than a continuation of the Soviet Union will blind him to the nuances of the situation”) but he is widely seen as an important European leader, and a pos-sible successor to Catherine Ashton, the European Union’s current foreign-policy chief.

Of course, there are some issues with having a U.S. military base. In Poland’s specific case, Russia may well view it as a provocation and a break with the 1997 NATO-Russia partnership deal that saw Western powers agree to not have “sub-stantial and permanent” troops and bases in Eastern Europe. More broadly, there might be issues with sovereignty and nationalism: U.S. military bases in the Philippines and Japan have prompt-ed a number of protests over the years. In practical terms, the bases themselves can sometimes end up costing the host countries a fair amount of money, too (for example, South Korea covers around 40 percent of the costs of U.S. military bases on its land).

It’s also a discussion for the U.S. mili-tary, of course. There were more than 1,000 U.S. military bases around the world just a few years ago, and many ques-tion whether the bases in Europe (many of which are in Germany) are of any great strategic value. Sikorski has questioned this, too.

“At the moment, we have NATO bases as legacies of the Cold War, in places where they were useful during the confronta-tion with the Soviet Union, and it doesn’t take into account the events of the last quarter of a century,” Sikorski told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour. “And this should now be addressed.”

Source: Washington Post

KuwaitKuwaiti Ambassador hails historic, diplomatic ties with WarsawKuwait Ambassador to Poland Adel Hayat praised diplomatic and historic relations between Poland and Kuwait, which extend for more than 50 years.

The ambassador said in an interview in June that the political ties between the two countries “are more than good but we

have to support and encourage and devel-op more economic, trade, investment and tourism relations between the two coun-tries.” Hayat stressed the importance on bolstering exchange of visits between of-ficials in both countries, including hosting of forums or conferences and exhibitions as a direct way of improving activities and investment opportunities between the two sides.

The ambassador noted that the Kuwaiti side, however needs special preferences, especially since its head-ing into unknown markets from its perspective, so that it needs to be en-couraged to invest seriously in differ-ent countries, particularly in Poland, which has a good economy that was not affected by European economic crises in recent years.

Hayat hailed as well the initiative ex-tended by Poland’s Foreign Ministry to invite a number of Kuwaiti journalists to visit the Republic of Poland, highlight investment opportunities, and places of tourism offered by Poland.

Ambassador Hayat said “that Poland provides excellent tourist destinations, and especially for its low prices com-pared with other European countries. The ambassador praised medical centers, health spas, and stressing importance on the need raise awareness of these servic-es to Kuwaiti people. Hayat stressed im-portance on opening direct flight route between the two countries because it will bring a big boost for relations in various fields. n

NetherlandsKing Wilhelm Alexander visits WarsawOn 25 June, on the occasion of the of-ficial visit of his Majesty King Wilhelm Alexander and Her Majesty Queen Maxima, the National Stadium in Warsaw will host the Polish-Dutch Economic Forum. Participation in the event has been confirmed by President of Poland Bronisław Komorowski. The official visit of the king will be accompanied by a business delegation representing energy, agriculture, logistics and water manage-ment sectors. After the plenary session B2B meetings between Polish and Dutch entrepreneurs will be held. The Forum is organised by Ministry of Economy, the Embassy of the Kingdom of Netherlands and PAIZ. n

Portugal Portuguese Business Mission opens new markets for Polish food producersBanco Espirito Santo (BES), PKO Bank Polski and the Polish-Portuguese Chamber of Commerce organized the second annual

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Portuguese Business Mission to Poland, which took place on May 28-29 in Warsaw. This year’s edition of the event aimed to build business partnerships between com-panies from the both countries.

For Polish companies, this was an op-portunity not only to meet suppliers of Portugal’s leading agricultural products, such as wines, olive oils or seafoods, but also a chance to enter, via Iberian part-ners, the new attractive African and South American markets where Portugal has been present for years.

“We hope that representatives of the Polish food sector will perceive the event as a chance to start international coopera-tion and to open into new markets,” says Bartłomiej Dmitruk, managing director of the investment and corporate banking department at Espirito Santo Investment Bank.

The agenda of this year’s Portuguese Business Mission focused on transferring the most important information on the food sectors both in Poland and Portugal as well as on industrial and individual meetings between companies from both countries. n

SwitzerlandSyngenta to Acquire Seed Business in Germany and PolandAgricultural chemicals company Syngenta AG recently announced that it has entered into an agreement to acquire the German and Polish winter wheat and winter oil-seed rape breeding and business opera-tions from Sweden-based Lantmännen. Following the acquisition, Syngenta will have access to high-quality germplasm, a seeds pipeline and its commercial variet-ies. It will enable the company to retain a greater foothold in the production of the two crops, which have strong growth po-tential. All employees of Lantmännen will continue to work for Syngenta in Germany and Poland.

Along with the acquisition, Syngenta and Lantmännen also entered into a re-search and development agreement re-lated to wheat. Further, Lantmännen will distribute Syngenta’s cereals and WOSR seeds in Sweden. Financial details of the transaction were not disclosed.

Syngenta reported record sales across most of its segments in the first quarter

of 2014. Revenues in EAME increased 8% year over year, while rising 5% in Latin America. Asia Pacific also recorded a 6% year-over-year sales hike. In spite of the sales decline in North American regions owing to delayed plantings, growth in European markets led to an overall rise in revenues. Moreover, Syngenta is ex-pected to announce its half-year 2014 results on Jul 23, 2014. Acquisitions like this are anticipated to fetch greater rev-enues in the coming quarters.

Syngenta is involved in the manufactur-ing, marketing and research of seeds and pesticides, enhancing crop yields and food quality. n

EmiratesWorld Arabian Horse Racing Conference coming to Poland in 2015The World Arabian Horse Racing Conference supported by the HH Shaikh Mansour Bin Zayed Al Nahyan Global Arabian Horse Flat Racing Festival con-cluded on a glittering note at the historic Guildhall in the City of London in early June.

Abdul Rahman Ganem Al Mutaiwee, UAE Ambassador to the United Kingdom, presented the Conference flag to Asim Mirza Al Rahma, the UAE Ambassador to the Republic of Poland to announce that the 2015 6th edition of the annual confer-ence will be held in Warsaw.

Conference speakers, moderators, offi-cials, Arabian horse racing breeders, UAE endurance riders, members of the media and envoys were feted at a dazzling cere-mony that marked the end of the three-day conference.

Among those honoured for their sup-port of the Festival included Juma Mubarak Al Junaibi, UAE Ambassador to Germany; Al Rahma, Saqr Nasser Ahmad Al Raisi, UAE Ambassador to Portugal, Abdul Aziz Nasser Al Shamsi, UAE Ambassador to Italy, Dr Hessa Abdullah Ahmad Al Otaiba, UAE Ambassador to Spain, Abdullah Hamdan Al Naqbi, UAE Ambassador to the Netherlands, Sulaiman Al Mazroui, UAE Ambassador to Belgium and Al Asri Saeed Al Dhaheri, UAE Ambassador to Morocco and Abdul Rahim Al Awadi from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The action was held partially at the Newbury racecourse, for the staging of the Festival’s HH Shaikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahyan Cup (Listed) and the HH Shaikha Fatima Bint Mubarak Ladies World Championship races. The former boasts a total prize fund of £70,000 while the Ladies World Championship offers a prize fund of £25,000 making it the richest ever race for ladies to be held in the UK. n

AustriaPoland wants Tamborski to finalize Warsaw-Vienna mergerPoland will shuffle management of the Warsaw Stock Exchange to speed up prepa-rations for a merger with Wiener Boerse AG and help the country’s sole equity mar-ket operator cement its position as the largest in central Europe.

The government, which holds a control-ling stake in the Warsaw exchange, pro-posed appointing former Deputy Treasury Minister Pawel Tamborski as a new chief executive officer at a shareholders’ meeting on June 26. Tamborski, who earlier worked as an investment banker at UniCredit SpA in Warsaw, will replace Adam Maciejewski, whose term expires this month.

“I expect the new CEO to lead the pro-cess of a potential merger of the Warsaw and Vienna bourses to the point where I’ll be able to make a final decision on it,” Treasury Minister Wlodzimierz Karpinski said in e-mailed responses to Bloomberg News questions today. Tamborski started negotiations with the Vienna bourse and is “a credible partner for the Austrian side.”

Warsaw and Vienna bourse operators started merger talks in April 2013, seeking to protect their market positions in central and eastern Europe amid growing con-solidation of stock markets worldwide and increased competition of alternative trad-ing platforms. Vienna bought bourses in Ljubljana and Prague in 2008 and Budapest in 2004, creating The CEE Stock Exchange Group with a market capitalization of 131 billion euros ($178 billion) as of April, ac-cording to data on its website. That com-pares with the Warsaw exchange’s total value of listed companies at 201 billion euros.

The planned merger is “a very diffi-cult process for technical and procedural

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reasons as well as due to cultural differ-ences” between the two bourses, Karpinski said. “The interest of the Polish market and economy will be our priority when we make a decision on the deal.”

Integration with Vienna is part of the Warsaw bourse’s expansion strategy un-til 2020. Its current CEO Maciejewski said in January he expects to complete the deal this year and the company may sell shares or bonds to finance the transaction.

The Warsaw exchange, which went pub-lic in 2010, is valued at 1.7 billion zloty ($559 million). Wiener Boerse, owned by Austrian financial institutions includ-ing UniCredit Bank Austria AG and Erste Group Bank AG (EBS), doesn’t publish fi-nancial statements. The Vienna group’s 226 stock listings compares with 456 in Warsaw.

“There are apparent risks connected to the valuation of Vienna and organizational issues arising from the merger,” Jaromir Szortyka, a Warsaw-based analyst at PKO Bank Polski SA, said. “Tamborski’s main task is to give a clear recommendation to the government as the Treasury Ministry apparently wants to have a final decision on the project.”

The bourse operators haven’t disclosed any details of their planned consolida-tion. The Polish government, which has 54 percent of voting rights at the Warsaw ex-change, hasn’t said what stake it will keep in the combined entity and whether it will cede control. n

FranceBastille Day Ball - Saturday July 12, 2014To be held at the restaurant Endorphin on Foksal 2 in Warsaw, this annual festivity celebrates French culture, featuring good wines, French cuisine, music and danc-ing. This is the ninth edition of the French Chamber of Commerce’s annual Bastille Day Ball. Attractions include French cui-sine and international, tasting of wines from various regions of France, compe-titions with prizes, dance to the beat of Francophone hits from all over the world, and fireworks. n

Scandinavia Poland now Norway’s largest export market for seafoodPoland is now Norway’s largest export market for seafood, partly due to soaring cod exports to the country. Figures from the first quarter of 2014 show that Poland is now the biggest buyer of Norwegian sea-food, in value, noted the Norwegian fish-ing vessels owners association Fiskebat on its website.

Exports to Poland in the quarter in-creased by 26% or NOK 313 million year-on-year, to NOK 1.526 billion. Poland was Norway’s third largest seafood market last year. The growth has been driven by salmon sales, but also by a huge increase in cod exports, said Fiskebat.

Cod exports from Norway to Poland increased by 89% in the quarter when compared to the same quarter last year. Exports of fresh cod rose the most, soaring by 225% or nearly NOK 30m to NOK 42.5m. Frozen cod exports increased by 13% or NOK 3.8m to NOK 32.9m.

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Poznan hosts the Scandinavian ChamberOn Sunday, June 8th, several thousands of Poznan citizens made a “journey” to Sweden, Norway and Finland. It was enough to take a walk by the Malta Lake to go on a magical journey during the “Scandinavia to Poznan picnic”. It was possible to learn how to take care of the environment and what is happen-ing with scrapped cars during a meeting with representatives of Stena Recycling. People interested in new culinary experiences could try Scandinavian delicacies. Younger athletes scored goals in the Reiss Football Academy, a little older trained in the technique of Nordic Walking. Women were delighted at the weav-ing wreaths workshops and men at fights among the Vikings.

After taking a good dose of knowledge re-lated to recycling or Danish and Norwegian languages, guests were able to rest while watching the Vikings fights or creating complicated structures out of Lego blocks.

Women were attracted by tent where they could weave wreaths or by corner with crime stories and fairy tales. The youngest were kicking the ball at the Academy of Football Reiss or jumping into the animation stage. And the winners of the TIPSPROMENAD running won a ferry trip to Ystad. n

ItalyItalian Chamber opens new office in KatowiceThe Italian Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Poland has a new office in Katowice. The inauguration took place in April. More than 80 companies from the re-gion attended this first event organized by

the local executive officer Pietro Vinci. The President of the Italian Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Poland Piero Cannas in his welcome speech presented the Chamber and its activities. Marek Zychla from the company Vinci & Vinci gave a brief report on the liabil-ity of board members in a company according to the Polish law. The Vice President of the Italian Chamber Donato Di Gilio showed the new programming of EU funds in Poland and indicated its measures and general criteria. Two examples of successful Italian stories in Poland were presented. The first was illus-trated by Alessandro Menghi from Indesit Company Polska who also talked about an interesting case of networking for all employ-ees of members of the Italian Chamber of Commerce. Enrico Bologna , CEO of Brembo Poland, explained how his company got more and more successful in Poland. A delicious Italian-Polish buffet was offered by the com-pany Serenissima Polska who is a member of the Italian Chamber of Commerce. n

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The 6th Congress of Women took place on 9th and 10th May, 2014. It was a very special event because of two anniversa-ries that Poland was celebrating this year – 25 years after systemic transforma-tion and 10 years after Polish accession to the European Union. The 6th Congress brought together over 9 thousand people (mostly women) from all over Poland. Foreign delegations from several other European countries also reached Warsaw. Representatives of Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Czech Republic, Germany, France, Finland, Norway, Sweden, Bulgaria but also United States and Tunisia managed to par-ticipate in our event. Even Indian feminists delegation attended the Congress. The 6th Congress of Women, under the banner of “community, equality, responsibility”, was inaugurated by its originators and activ-ists – Henryka Bochniarz, Magdalena Sroda and Dorota Warakomska.

The first day of the Congress passed under the thematic centres, among them: Congress Centre, Education, Business

and Economy, Culture, Self-Government, Public Affairs, Health, Green and European Centre where the Fourth Round Table of

EU Ministers for Gender Equality deliber-ated on the equality of women and men in decision-making bodies. n

For the fourth time, Kielce held the Eastern Poland Macro Region Forum – the region where due to PAIiIZ support €1.415 billion has been invested during last ten years. The list of special guests of the event in-cluded former European commissioner for Enterprise and Industry Günter Verheugen and former Polish prime minister and president of the European Parliament Jerzy Buzek.

While opening the Forum, PAIiIZ dep-uty president Bożena Czaja summarised the Eastern Poland Economic Promotion Programme 2009-2014. During the past decade – she said – PAIiIZ supported 484 investment projects. 45 of them were lo-cated in five provinces of Eastern Poland. The total value of these projects reached €1.415 billion and the number of new jobs created due to them was 8055. Until recently

320 companies took part in the programme and benefited form it by the significance increase of exports. Moreover, 200 of them declare the will to further increase of employment.

The first day of the Forum was summed up by former prime and former president of European Parliament, Jerzy Buzek. 4th Forum of Eastern Poland gathered 250 par-ticipants. (PAIiIZ) n

Events

Perspectives for the Eastern Poland Macro-region

6th Congress of Women

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Nearly 300 attendees, exhibitors and VIP guests attended the first annual edi-tion of POLAND SPECIALTY FOODS & BEVERAGES EXPO, including Polish food buyers from retailers, importers, distribu-tors, and major hotels. PFEX attracted guests from more than 25 countries includ-ing Poland, Hungary, Lithuania, Czech, Slovakia, Slovenia, Ukraine, Croatia, Georgia, Romania, Germany, UK, Ireland,

Spain, Portugal, France, Netherlands, Belgium, US, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Chile, Japan, Taiwan, Thailand, Korea, China, Pakistan, and Vietnam.

A Special thanks to our sponsors and supporting organizations, including Raben Group, the Polish National Chamber of Commerce (KIG), AC Nielsen, and Morawskie Sklepy. More than 20 media part-ners and food associations supported the

event, as well as wide range of Commercial offices from Embassies and Chambers of Commerce. In addition to the Expo, the af-ternoon including expert speakers, such as Nielsen (Monika Lukaszek), POHiD Polish Retailing Association (Andrzej Faliński), WARS S.A. (Pawel Dudek), Mielzynski wines (Robert Mielzynski), MadeinPR (Monika Domańska), and Kuchnie Swiata (Dariusz Richter). n

Events

Poland Specialty Foods and Beverages Expo (PFEX)

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2014 July–August

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