Polish Market No. 5-6 (257) /2016 by Polish Market

Culture

PU B LISHED SIncE 199 6 No. 5-6 (257) /2017 :: www.polishmarket.com.pl

AlejAndro negrín Muñoz, AmbAssAdor of mexico in PolAnd

............................... HAnnover Messe: *Jarosław Gowin, d e P u t y Prime min is ter, mi ni st e r o f scien ce An d HigHe r educAtion *sMArt MeAns PolAnd

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infrastructure: *central transport Hub * K rzys zt o f Ko n drac iu K , nAtionAl roArds And motorwAys

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mikołaj

“it

may

seem that windows differ little among each other. But nothing could be further from the truth” President of oknoPlast

placek

ONTENT

6. From The President’s Press Office 7. From The Government Information Centre OUR GUEST

HENRYK KOWALCZYK, Minister-Member of the Council of Ministers, Chairman of the Standing Committee of the Council of Ministers; 3x DEVELOPMENT

SCIENCE

11. JAROSŁAW GOWIN, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of

Science and Higher Education; POTENTIAL OF POLISH SCIENCE AT HANNOVER MESSE

12. SMART MEANS POLAND. POLAND AT HANNOVER MESSE 15. MARCIN HABER, MODERN TECHNOLOGIES SERVING PATIENTS

INDUSTRY

17. TOMASZ ZIELIŃSKI, President of the Board of the Polish

Chamber of Chemical Industry (PIPC); THE 2017 CONGRESS OF THE POLISH CHEMICAL SECTOR - WHAT IS THE CHEMICAL INDUSTRY ALL ABOUT TODAY?

18. INVENTION – INNOVATION COOPERATION INFRASTRUCTURE

21. KAZIMIERZ SMOLIŃSKI, Deputy Minister of Infrastructure

and Construction; WE DEVELOP RESIDENTIAL BUILDING IN POLAND

22. ENERGY CONSUMPTION IN OFFICE BUILDINGS REPORT 26. MIKOŁAJ PLACEK, President of Oknoplast Sp. z o.o.;

33. DARIUSZ BLOCHER, President and Managing Director of Budimex SA; LOOKING FOR COMMON SENSE SOLUTIONS

34.

KONRAD PŁOCHOCKI, General Director of the Polish Association of Developers (PZFD); DOES GREEN MEAN MORE EXPENSIVE?

36. RADOSŁAW KNAP, General Director of the Polish Council of Shopping Centres (PRCH); POLISH SHOPPING MARKET NEEDS MORE DIVERSITY

38.

21 SHOPPING CENTRES ARE UNDER CONSTRUCTION IN POLAND, WITH THE TOTAL SIZE OF MORE THAN 70 FOOTBALL PITCHES

40. NEW DEFINITION OF A STATION 42. MARCIN HABER, CENTRAL TRANSPORT HUB - A TRANSPORT SOLUTION FOR POLAND'S ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

43.

ŁUKASZ GREINKE, President of the Board Managing Director of the Port of Gdansk Authority SA; THE NEW LOGISTICS SOLUTION TRANSFERS THE ENTIRE DISTRIBUTION DIRECTLY TO GDANSK

44.

PROMOTING ENVIRONMENT-FRIENDLY AND MODERN TRANSPORT

45.

HERBERT LEOPOLD GABRYŚ, Chairman of the Committee for Energy and Climate Policy Polish Chamber of Commerce; ELECTRIC MOBILITY AS AN ANSWER TO THE PROBLEM OF ENERGY STORAGE. ARE THERE OTHER IDEAS ON HOW TO REDUCE VARIATIONS IN DAILY ENERGY CONSUMPTION?

47. 25TH EUROPOWER CONFERENCE POWER INDUSTRY AND THE MORAWIECKI PLAN

48. INNOVATIONS FIRST AND FOREMOST

WE SET TRENDS

INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

30. MICHAŁ PIASECKI, Head of Thermal Physics, Acoustics and

Environment Department, Instytut Techniki Budowlanej (ITB) and ROBERT GERYŁO, Deputy Director for Strategy and Development, Instytut Techniki Budowlanej (ITB); THE ITB METHODS FOR ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENT OF CONSTRUCTION PRODUCTS AND BUILDINGS

32.

KRZYSZTOF KONDRACIUK, General Director for National Roads and Motorways; GDDKIA IS SETTING THE PACE

50. VISIT OF PRESIDENT ANDRZEJ DUDA TO MEXICO 52.

ALEJANDRO NEGRÍN MUÑOZ, Ambassador of Mexico in Poland; MEXICO - ONE OF THE FIVE NON-EUROPEAN PRIORITY MARKETS FOR POLISH ECONOMY

54. WOJCIECH FEDKO, Vice-President of the Polish Investment and Trade Agency; POLAND NEEDS PARTNERS OUTSIDE EUROPE

56. POLISH- CHINESE AGREEMENTS

74.

PROF. MARIUSZ GRZEGORZEK, film and theatre Director, Rector of the Leon Schiller National Higher School of Film, Television and Theatre (PWSFTVIT); HERE REALLY "SPARKS ARE FLYING UP". HERE NO ONE PRETENDS TO BE THE MASTER

76. MACIEJ PROLIŃSKI; ARGENTINE NIGHT

58. ZDZISŁAW BIK, President and General Director of Fasing SA; LISTENING TO CUSTOMERS

77. THE MOST FAMOUS BALLET IN A NEW VERSION

60. E-SHOP WITH SUBCARPATHIAN FLAVOURS

78. MACIEJ PROLIŃSKI; BEAUTY STILL WORTH GETTING TO KNOW

62. KOMBUCHA ELIXIR OF LONGEVITY

79. WHEN MASTERS PASS AWAY- WE SING SONGS...

MARKET IN POLAND 2016 EDITION

80. MACIEJ PROLIŃSKI; DESIGN FROM POLAND GOOD DESIGN!

FINANCE

65.

IWONA SROKA, PhD, President & CEO of KDPW and KDPW_CCP; KDPW TO DEVELOP POST-TRADE SERVICES

82. DARIUSZ KORDEK – well-known Polish actor, culture manager and theatre producer; LEARN MORE ABOUT VOLUNTEERING!

66.

MAŁGORZATA SZTURMOWICZ, Member of the Board of Idea Bank; THINKING ABOUT ENTREPRENEURS

68. MIROSŁAW SKIBA, Vice-President of the Management Board of Bank Zachodni WBK; CUSTOMER SECURITY IS THE PILLAR OF THE COMPANY

70. NEW PERSPECTIVES FOR THE FINANCIAL SECTOR, THE MEETING OF LEADERS OF

EVENTS 84. POLAND HAS TO BUILD THE COOPERATION FOUNDATIONS WHITHIN THE EU 86. LEADERSHIP, MANAGEMENT AND INNOVATION

BANKING AND INSURANCE 2017

89. ECONOMIC MONITOR

CULTURE 72. CULTURAL MONITOR

Cover: MIKOŁAJ PLACEK, President of Oknoplast Sp. z o.o. Photos on issue: www.shutterstock.com

5-6/2017 Publisher: Oficyna Wydawnicza RYNEK POLSKI Sp. z o.o. (RYNEK POLSKI Publishers Co. Ltd.) President: Krystyna Woźniak-Trzosek Vice - Presidents: Błażej Grabowski, Grażyna Jaskuła Address: ul. Elektoralna 13, 00-137 Warszawa, Poland Phone (+48 22) 620 31 42, 652 95 77 Fax (+48 22) 620 31 37 E-mail: info@polishmarket.com.pl

Writers/Editors: Maciej Proliński, Jan Sosna, Janusz Korzeń, Jerzy Bojanowicz, Andrzej Kazimierski, Janusz Turakiewicz Translation: Sylwia Wesołowska-Betkier, BusinessClass Contributors: Agnieszka Turakiewicz Graphic design: Godai Studio Agnieszka Charuba, Joanna Wiktoria Grabowska

Editor-in-Chief: Krystyna Woźniak-Trzosek

Sales: Phone (+48 22) 620 38 34, 654 95 77

Deputy Editor-in-Chief: Ewelina Janczylik-Foryś redakcja@polishmarket.com.pl Marcin Haber m.haber@polishmarket.com.pl

Marketing Manager: Magdalena Koprowicz m.koprowicz@polishmarket.com.pl

DTP: Godai Studio www.godai.pl Printing: Zakłady Graficzne TAURUS – Roszkowscy Sp. z o. o., www.drukarniataurus.pl Circulation: 8,000 Oficyna Wydawnicza RYNEK POLSKI Sp. z o.o. Nr KRS 0000080385, Sąd Rejonowy dla m.st. Warszawy XII Wydział Gospodarczy Kapitał zakładowy 80.000,- zł. REGON 011915685, NIP 526-11-62-572 Published articles represent the authors’ personal views only. The Editor and Publisher disclaim any responsibility or liability for their contents. Unso-licited material will not be returned. The editors reserve the right to edit the material for length and content. The editors accept no responsibility what-soever for the content of advertising material. Reproduction of any material from this magazine requires prior written permission from the Publisher.

Editorial

Krystyna Woźniak-Trzosek Editor-in-Chief President of Rynek Polski Publishers Co. Ltd.

THE LATEST WORLD BANK FORECASTS MAKE A TRULY INSPIRING READING. ACCORDING TO THEM, IN 2017 POLAND’S ECONOMIC GROWTH IS EXPECTED TO REACH 3.3 %, UP FROM 2.8 % IN 2016. IN THE NEXT FEW YEARS IT IS EXPECTED TO BE FUELLED BY INVESTMENT FINANCED OUT OF EUROPEAN UNION FUNDING, RISING PRIVATE CONSUMPTION (MAINLY THANKS TO THE VERY FAVOURABLE SITUATION ON THE LABOUR MARKET AND THE FAMILY 500+ PROGRAMME), THE SUCCESSFUL IMPLEMENTATION OF THE STRATEGY FOR RESPONSIBLE DEVELOPMENT (CHIEFLY OWING TO REFORMS MEANT TO IMPROVE THE BUSINESSES ENVIRONMENT AND TO PROMOTE INNOVATION), AS WELL AS THE STREAMLINING OF FISCAL POLICIES. But can rising consumption genuinely ensure Poland stable GDP growth? A dispute on an estimated USD 5 billion needed to finance the government’s Family 500+ programme of social benefits has already been settled. None of the political forces will now be able to back away from it. Still, the financing of the programme remains an issue. It has provisionally been tucked away under foreign debt and the rising cost of its servicing. But the jury is out on that one. On the one hand, Poland’s declining export surplus has given rise to concern. On the other, this year’s consumer spending has seen record sales of (mostly imported) clothing and footwear, but also of furniture, white goods, cosmetics and pharmaceuticals (which in fact are Poland’s biggest export hits) and motor cars (where components manufactured in Poland prevail.) Yet can this trend be expected to hold, or perhaps even pick up further, thus giving more boost to domestic manufacturers? The accompanying housing construction boom is unlikely to do it any harm, either. Analysts say all those mushrooming apartment blocks are needed for young Poles born at the tail-end of the 1980s baby boom. They are now turning 34-35, a perfect time to have saved up enough to settle down and invest in a place of your own. Once the baby boomers do move into their dream homes, demand on the Polish housing market can only decline. The government Home Plus programme does not thus come a moment too soon. It promises to make buying a flat much more affordable for those in the mid- and lower-income brackets, as well as boosting housing construction standards, making houses more energy efficient. The commercial side of the programme falls under the responsibility of the BGK Nieruchomości public limited company, which has resources of some USD1 billion at its disposal. It will be interesting to see whether, as well as making up for existing housing shortages, a forecast technological revolution does materialize. Last year private investors built 65,000 housing units for their own needs. More importantly, a considerable proportion of these newly built homes goes beyond earlier detached housing construction trends in Poland. Those who build and plan to move in clearly opt for single-generation homes with zero- and low-emission efficiency levels. The materials, technology and construction market seems to be responding to this trend fairly sluggishly, but it would be good not to waste this opportunity. Energy efficiency is an issue that also crops up in Poland’s, and other East European countries’, efforts to improve the underdeveloped rail and road infrastructure. While motorists are having mixed feelings about the thousands of trees cut down in Poland last winter on the sites where new motorways, expressways and ring roads are being built, there are also fears that problems encountered during the previous EU financial period may hit back – deadlines piling up, erratic supplies and construction capabilities lagging behind. Is it now possible to make up for the lost time with better planning, workmanship quality and, above all, reversing the ongoing trend of shifting passenger and cargo transport from the railways to the road network? Just how well these opportunities in individual sectors of the economy are tapped will become clear when it is known how high the demand for energy will be. The Polish energy industry has largely wasted its chances over the years it has fought a losing battle with EU energy and environmental policies. Poland’s current power-generating capabilities are all but exhausted. There is only one thing left to do for all those defending the Polish coal industry, unfulfilled inventors of clean coal technologies, those who have made a mess of building new coal-fired power stations, and those involved in endless battles with residents opposed to power lines built in their backyard. And that is to remain deaf and blind to the news of further coal-fired power stations being closed down all over Europe and to the prices of renewable energy sources that do not need state subsidies. For now, there seem to be more questions than answers.

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President

ANNUAL BRIEFING OF TOP DEFENCE MINISTRY OFFICIALS AND MILITARY COMMANDERS

Our most significant task is to build a strong state with an army that can defend the borders of the Republic and cooperate in alliances", President Andrzej Duda said on April 12 at the annual briefing of top Defence Ministry officials and military commanders in Warsaw. "I have talked about it not once that our most important task is to build a strong state. In this strong state, the army – fit, well equipped, very well trained, also having the necessary experience and preparation, both to defend the borders of the Republic and to cooperate with the allies – is absolutely fundamental. " He emphasized that he was very happy to accept the invitation to the briefing. "But I also want to stress with great force that I am coming here with great respect to all the generals, to all the officers of the army, to all your subordinates, Polish soldiers, who have dedicated their life to the service to the Republic", the President said.

PRESIDENT ANDRZEJ DUDA WELCOMES NATO TROOPS

The arrival of NATO forces in Poland is a historical moment for which generations of Polish people waited since the end of World War II", President Andrzej Duda said on April 13 in Orzysz north-eastern Poland at the official welcoming ceremony for the NATO battalion which had arrived in Poland in March. "Here we all stand before a battalion combat group of the North Atlantic Alliance on Polish soil. It will be no exaggeration when I say that generations of Polish people waited for this moment since the end of the Second World War, dreaming about Poland's return to membership in the just, loyal, democratic and truly free West", the president said. Andrzej Duda added that the presence of the battalion in Poland showed that "freedom has arrived after years of waiting for it, and this freedom is strong". Stationed in Orzysz since March, the NATO unit consists of US, British and Romanian troops. In future it is to be enlarged by Croatian forces.

POLISH-HUNGARIAN FRIENDSHIP DAY

resident Andrzej Duda officialy welcomed Hungarian President János Áder on March 24 at the Royal Castle in Piotrków Trybunalski, where the celebrations of the PolishHungarian Friendship Days began. At the Castle there was a meeting of the Presidential Couples, and then plenary talks of the Polish and Hungarian delegations conducted by the Heads of these states. The celebrations of the Polish-Hungarian Friendship Days was an opportunity for János Áder to visit Poland. The celebrations take place alternately in Poland and Hungary, usually outside the capitals of these countries. This year the choice fell on Piotrków Trybunalski, where the seat of the Crown Court was established in 1578 by the king of Poland, Prince of Transylvania Stephen Báthory. ”Our peoples are optimistic about the future of Europe”, President Andrzej Duda said during the press conference. ”Support for European unity in both Hungary and Poland is very high. It is obvious to us that we want the European Union to exist; we want it to grow as best as possible”, he emphasized.

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PRESIDENT: US ARMY PRESENCE IN POLAND A CHANCE

resident Duda met on April 13 with General Curtis M. Scaparrotti, NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe. "The presence in Poland of NATO's Supreme Allied Commander Europe and the US army creates a chance that such dramatic developments in Poland's history like in 1939 and 1940 will never repeat themselves", said President Andrzej Duda. The president told a joint press conference that in a few hours together with the US general they would attend an official welcome ceremony of NATO's Multinational Battalion Battle Group in Orzysz, north-eastern Poland. President Duda stressed that the moment of the official welcome of the Multinational Battalion Battle Group was in a way historic. "It is also symbolic. Today is the Day of Remembrance of the Katyn Massacre perpetrated in April 1940 on defenceless Polish soldiers, representatives of the Polish intelligentsia because the allies had not kept their word, because Poland fell victim to two types of aggression from the two sides, and because Poland was erased from the map and the Polish army was unable to fight against two invaders since the allies did not help", the president stressed. The Katyn Massacre was a series of executions in which around 22,000 Polish officers and members of the intelligentsia were murdered at the hands of the Soviets. "Today, the presence in Poland of NATO's Supreme Allied Commander Europe and the US army, the biggest army in the world and the biggest NATO army, is proof that the world has been changing and is a chance that such dramatic developments in Poland's history like in 1939 and 1940 will never repeat themselves", the Polish president said. Poland is aware of the obligations stemming from its NATO membership, President Andrzej Duda stressed. "Poland understands that apart from the issue of its security, understood directly as strengthening Poland's security here, there is also the issue of building by the Alliance, including Poland, security in the international arena".

Prime Minister

PRIME MINISTER BEATA SZYDŁO MEETS WITH THE CHIEF BREXIT NEGOTIATOR

he subjects discussed in Warsaw on April 20 by Prime Minister Beata Szydło and Chief Brexit Negotiator Michel Barnier were the conditions and rules of leaving the European Union by the United Kingdom and the relations after the exit of this state from the Community. Both sides have a similar approach to the most important issues in this regard. The meeting was held during the intensive preparations for the extraordinary meeting of the European Council concerning Brexit scheduled for the end of April in Brussels. The negotiation process related to Brexit was formally initiated by the British side on 29 March 2017, through a request under Art. 50 of the EU Treaty. The parties have two years to negotiate the exit agreement. This period may be extended with the consent of all EU Member States.

PRIME MINISTER BEATA SZYDŁO MEETS WITH THE LIBYAN MINISTER OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS

ecurity in the region of the Mediterranean Sea and North Africa and economic and investment cooperation were the main topics discussed in Warsaw on March 30 by Prime Minister Beata Szydło and Libyan Foreign Affairs Minister Mohamed Taher Siala. During the meeting, the Prime Minister declared Poland's support for the Libyan Government of National Accord and the stabilization of the internal situation in the country, as well as the national dialogue and implementation of the provisions of the political agreement. In addition, the Head of government supported Libya's action in the scope of combating terrorism and counteracting illegal immigration. Beata Szydło also talked with Mohamed Tehara Siala about the intensification of trade and scientific, academic and training cooperation.

PRIME MINISTER BEATA SZYDŁO MEETS WITH THE SPEAKER OF THE HUNGARIAN PARLIAMENT

rime Minister Beata Szydło met in Warsaw on April 19 with László Kövér, Speaker of the Hungarian National Assembly. The subject of the talks was PolishHungarian relations, regional cooperation and European matters. The meeting was also an opportunity to discuss cooperation with Hungary in the European arena, primarily within the Visegrad Group. The Polish Presidency of the Group is currently underway, while a one-year Hungarian Presidency term is to begin on 1 July this year . The Polish-Hungarian talks also related to the current matters of the EU agenda, including the ongoing debate on the future shape of the Community and the already formally launched process of the UK's withdrawal from the EU.

PRIME MINISTER BEATA SZYDŁO PAYS HOMAGE TO THE HEROES OF THE UPRISING IN THE WARSAW GHETTO

n the occasion of the 74th anniversary of the outbreak of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, Prime Minister Beata Szydło paid tribute to the insurgents and laid flowers in front of the Ghetto Heroes Monument in Warsaw's Muranów district on April 19. On 19 April, 1943, the fighters of the Jewish Fighting Organization and the Jewish Military Union opposed Germans who began the liquidation of the Jewish district. The representatives of Jewish organizations, persons honoured with the Righteous Among the Nations medal, the diplomatic corps, the representatives of Polish cultural institutions, and the inhabitants of the capital city also paid homage. The Warsaw Ghetto was the largest of ghettos established by Germans. The uprising, which was led, among others, by Mordechaj Anielewicz, Marek Edelman and Paweł Frenkel, was the first large-scale armed action taken by Polish underground organizations against Germans. It was also the first urban uprising in the occupied Europe.

PRIME MINISTERS OF THE VISEGRAD GROUP SIGN THE WARSAW DECLARATION

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Photo: P. Tracz KPRM

Innovation should become a symbol, it should be a sign of our region”, emphasized Prime Minister Beata Szydło during the Central and Eastern Europe Innovators Summit in Warsaw on March 28. The Prime Ministers of V4 countries signed the Warsaw Declaration, supporting the innovative economy. Prime Minister Beata Szydło said the Warsaw Declaration was a new way for the Visegrad Group and that it was for our common future. "I am very happy that we are here together. We can talk about the future of a modern, innovative Europe - Europe, which we want here in our region to be associated primarily with innovation, youth, energy and with the most positive things”, Beata Szydło pointed out at the Central and Eastern Europe Innovators Summit. The Head of government declared that the Visegrad Group countries want to build together a good future for the European Union, referring to the previously conducted talks of the V4 leaders during the visit of the Heads of government in Warsaw.

Our Guest

X DEVELOPMENT HENRYK KOWALCZYK, Minister-Member of the Council of Ministers, Chairman of the Standing Committee of the Council of Ministers in conversation with Ewelina Janczylik-Foryś

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Our Guest The Council of Ministers has adopted a resolution on the "State’s Multiannual Financial Framework for 2017-2020" submitted by the Minister for Economic Development and Finance. Was it necessary to adopt this type of plan? Creating such a document results from several things. It is important to plan financing over a period of several years, not just one year, as the budget. A lot of investments do not end within a year, but they take many years. The convergence programme, which we submit to the European Commission, also imposes drafting financial plans for several years ahead on us. These 3 years of investment planning and counting of financial results are necessary and these assumptions must be very precise so that there will be no surprises later. PM

The plan assumes that economic growth in Poland in 2017 will amount to 3.6%, that is 0.9 percentage points above the level of 2016. In the next years the real pace of GDP growth is to accelerate gradually to 3.8% in 2018 and 3.9% in 2019-2020 respectively. Is it safe to assume the economic growth at this level under precarious macroeconomic conditions? Every forecast is burdened with risk. Nevertheless, our planned figures of 3.6, 3.8 and 3.9 are feasible. They were not invented by the Polish government, but these figures are confirmed by the World Bank and by the International Monetary Fund. Our assumptions are similar. Please consider the 1st quarter of 2017, which is very satisfactory and allows us to maintain these projections. I think that this is realistic, but errors in the order of 1% have to be taken into account. PM

Will Brexit not affect our economic growth? I think that we will manage somehow with the UK coming out of the European Union. Great Britain was a bit off the beaten track, it did not participate so much in the EU budget as other countries. Therefore, I believe that Brexit should not shake our economy. Britain is not a major trading partner for Poland in the European Union. I think our relations and bilateral agreements will allow us to preserve our existing cooperation. Contrary to appearances, the results for Poland may be better than expected. PM

Why? Poles who live in the UK work there and live and want to keep their current rights. That is understandable. But our countrymen who now want to go to the UK will not get these rights. It might be paradoxically PM

beneficial for the Polish economy because people will stay in Poland. And the withdrawal of capital? Poland is an attractive country for investors. Perhaps some financial institutions will want to move to Poland. Sometimes, in spite of appearances, one can benefit from such confusion.

is looking for destinations in Europe that will be transshimpment points for their goods. And Poland can play such a role.

We are talking about this in May when Poland celebrates its integration with the European Union. 13 years ago Poland joined the European Union. How do you assess this decision after many years? It was definitely a good decision. We started with a low economic level. We have caught up with the European Union a lot. It is true that we still lack a bit to reach their level, but without integration with the Union we would not have been able to think about it at all. The decision on accession was beneficial for Poland, but also for the so-called ”Old” Union. Poland is a big market, foreign investors have access to very good, highly specialized employees. So the benefits are mutual. PM

As at the end of 2016, more than EUR 6.6 billion, which is the highest amount among all the EU Member States, were transferred to Poland under the present EU financial plan. According to information from the European Commission, Poland as the only country in 2016 reached the level of payments in line with its forecasts. As far as the use of EU funds is concerned, we had put a lot of work into becoming a leader. We did a lot of catching up. We just came up with the premise that since we have the allotted resources, it would be a sin not to use them. PM

Talking about the European Union, it is impossible not to ask about the foreign expansion of Polish entrepreneurs. One of the priorities of the government is to encourage Polish companies to enter the European markets, and even global ones. What are the key directions of this expansion for Polish entrepreneurs? Is it still the European Union? Or maybe should we think of Latin America and South America? Or about Asia, for example Kazakhstan, China and India? The European market is a tight market, but our entrepreneurs deal with it very well, the furniture market and agriculture. But every opportunity to export outside the Union is very valuable. That is why the activities of the Polish government outside the Community, - in Africa, Arab countries and India are so important. We also hope for closer cooperation with China. All the more so as China PM

Hence the idea of the Central Transport Hub? Among others.

We want to be a window to the world for China. If the vision of the Central Transport Hub, a place where we will connect both rail and air transport, is to be fulfilled, I think we can be a window to the whole Europe for China. We hope that China will also be involved in the continuation of the Silk Road project. PM

In June, the Astana Expo 2017 exhibition begins. One of the aims of the Polish presentation is the promotion of our country. The exhibition takes place in Kazakhstan, in Asia. So speaking of our cooperation with China we cannot omit Kazakhstan, through the territory of which the Silk Road would also run. We have been taking note of a very good cooperation with Kazakhstan. On the occasion of the Expo, President of the Republic of Poland Andrzej Duda is to pay his foreign visit to that country. We try to facilitate cooperation to entrepreneurs by, for example, the abolition of visas or the opening of the direct WarsawAstana air connection. These are seemingly little things, but very important for our relations. PM

How can we encourage potential partners to work with us? We want to change the perception of Poland from a country with an imitative economy to a country with modern technologies. Modern technology is our goal. We were an assembly plant in the 1990s, now we can afford to have our own technologies. We cannot just rely on the export of raw materials or food. These directions were good 20 years ago. Now we can do more, we know more. That is why the government is strongly supporting innovation, through the introduction of tax incentives for innovative enterprises. We also expect that a fairly high funding for national defence, in the order of 2% of GDP, will be exploited for modern technologies rather than the production of simple tanks. PM

What direction will we follow? To integrate with the European Union - and we want it - we have to catch up with the highly developed countries of the Community. The economic growth must be significantly higher than the EU average. And this high economic growth can provide modern technologies and innovation. The development of digital technology is essential. It all merges into one whole. • PM

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Our Guest

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Science

POTENTIAL OF POLISH SCIENCE AT HANNOVER MESSE

JAROSŁAW GOWIN, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Science and Higher Education, on Polish presence at Hannover Messe.

annover Messe is the most significant technology fair in the world. The fact that Poland will be the main partner of this year's fair is a great chance for us. A year ago such role was taken up by the United States. The fact that deputy Prime Minister Morawiecki’s plan, which sometimes stirs controversy, but is very inspiring, is being implemented, focuses the whole world’s attention and turns its eyes towards our country, economy and science. These eyes will be turned, inter alia, towards the SciTech stand - prepared entirely by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education - dedicated to technologies that the Polish academic sector produces. Our presence in Hannover is an opportunity to show another, much more real face of Poland. Other than that, whose picture dominates in the foreign media. We want to show the face of outstanding Polish, young, talented scientists. We want to show that Poland is a vibrant country rich in entrepreneurship and start-ups, and that in the area of modern technologies we are close to breaking out of what economists call the middle-income trap.

It is never certain whether a given invention will translate into implementation. There is a reason why everywhere in the world there are talks about a so-called "valley of death" that extends between invention and implementation. We are coming to Hannover with the elite of Polish scientists, representatives of the different generations of technological thought. We are also coming with a whole range of very interesting, potentially technologically and economically efficient inventions. We are doing this to show the overall potential of Polish science, but also to attract specific investors to work with our scientists. We have organized a competition to select the most interesting projects. They are the most interesting not only from the research point of view, but also from the point of view of potential investments. As far as potential commercialization is concerned, the individual research units - universities, institutes of the Polish Academy of Sciences (PAN) or other research institutes – are the potential partners. The Ministry, on its part, will be supporting every opportunity for Polish inventions to find their way to the assembly line and later to the world‘s markets. • 5-6/2017 polish market

Science

SMART MEANS POLAND

POLAND AT HANNOVER MESSE Prime Minister Beata Szydło, along with German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, jointly opened the Polish stand cutting the virtual ribbon at the international trade fair in Hannover on April 24. The Polish Prime Minister was encouraging German companies to cooperate with Poland. The Polish and German heads of government were accompanied by Polish Deputy Prime Ministers: Minister of Economic Development and Finance Mateusz Morawiecki and Minister of Science and Higher Education Jarosław Gowin.

uring the Hannover Messe Poland was presented at two booths - the official one and SciTech, which was supervised by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education, and on which the inventions of Polish scientists were presented. Poland promoted itself with the "Smart means Poland" slogan. During the opening ceremony of the Polish stand Prime Minister Beata Szydło stressed that Poland wanted to show in Hannover "what is creative, young, what is the future in Poland”. She noted that she gladly welcomed the invitation for Poland as the partner country to the Hannover fair. As she added, the status of Poland as the partner country during this year's edition of the fair in Hannover was "a great honour and a testimony to the growing strength of the Polish economy, its competitiveness and innovation". "Through our presence at the fair, we want to present Poland as a country actively building its competitive advantage based on the development of new technologies, especially in the area of automation and digitization of manufacturing processes”, Ms Szydło emphasized. As she said, there

„Polish Market” Economic Magazine at Polish National stand

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Events

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were over 200 Polish companies present at the fair. She was encouraging German entrepreneurs to become more actively involved, together with Polish partners, in investment projects aimed at the implementation and commercialization of research and development results. "As part of the Responsible Development Strategy, which is the main programme document defining the directions of the state's economic policy, we are committed to intelligent reindustrialisation, being guided by the belief that only having a strong, knowledge-based industrial potential at our disposal conditions a sustained increase in the share of Polish companies in global value chains”, Ms Szydło said. "One of the most important goals of my government is to increase the innovation of the Polish economy. We want to compete more effectively on the global market, so we pay much attention to strengthening the links between industry, business and science," she added. In turn, German Chancellor, Angela Merkel emphasized that she was delighted with the possibility to get to know Poland from a completely different perspective. "Many of us have already been to Poland, know the landscapes and cities, but we do not know digital Poland so well", she said. "That is why I am very happy to be able to take a look at another, not so well-known side of Poland", she added. "I hope that Poland's presence at the Hannover fair will open a new chapter in Polish-German cooperation, and that contacts will be even closer and better", Ms Merkel said. ”The Polish government puts a lot of emphasis on economy and development”, Prime Minister Szydło said. As she added, the Responsible Development Plan, being implemented by the government, is, among others, to stimulate linking economy and science. "We do our best to make these two disciplines very cooperative", she pointed out. She stressed that the Polish government was keen to make the things that are created at universities, in the comfort of offices and in laboratories, go to the economy. "The Polish economy must develop on the basis of modern technologies, it must be competitive, it must be creative, energetic. We want to win with the youth of those who make this economy and science", Ms Szydło said. In the opinion of the Prime Minister, it was a good moment to show what Poland had achieved so far. "To show that Poland is a safe, welldeveloping country, where there is a better and better climate for taking on economic challenges," she pointed out. Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Science and Higher Education Jarosław Gowin expressed his hope that, in the future, the world and European economy will, to a greater extent than so far, be based on the achievements of Polish scientists. "Polish science, Polish universities are now in the process of deep reforms. One of the pillars of these reforms is to build a bridge between the world of science and the world of economy." At the Polish booth, which occupied about 1.2 thousand square meters, there were 10 Polish companies. These were Solaris Bus & Coach, Ursus Bus, Transition Technologies, Saule Technologie, Ekoenergetyka Polska, DT Poland, Zortrax, Medcom, H. Cegielski and TMA Automation. The Ministry of Science and Higher Education, eight regions, five special economic zones and the Office of Technical

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Photo: P. Tracz/Chancellery of the Prime Minister

Science

The Polish Prime Minister Beata Szydło, together with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, opened the international industrial fair Hannover Messe 2017. Inspection were present at the booth. In the start-up area SciTech - there were additionally 18 young, innovative companies, and the whole fair was attended by a total of nearly 200 companies from Poland. "The SciTech Poland booth showed what we have the best in Polish research and in Polish science", Ms Szydło said while opening it with Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Science and Higher Education Jarosław Gowin. •

Source: Polish Press Agency (PAP)

Science

MODERN

Photo: Prof. Henryk Skarżyński, Chairman of the Clinical Science Committee of the Polish Academy of Sciences Katarzyna Czerwińska / Kancelaria Senatu source: senat.gov.pl

TECHNOLOGIES SERVING PATIENTS

Young doctors and scientists from Polish scientific and clinical centres presented innovative solutions applied in various fields of medicine in the Senate of the Republic of Poland, on 8 May 2017. The conference "Modern Medical Technologies and Their Impact on Prevention and Daily Clinical Practice in Polish Healthcare" was organized on the initiative of Senate Speaker Stanisław Karczewski and Chairman of the Clinical Science Committee of the Polish Academy of Sciences Prof. Henryk Skarżyński.

Marcin Haber

Polish medicine is modern. We want to show that there is a lot of good things going on in it," the Speaker the Senate said opening the conference. He expressed his hope that science, whose achievements will translate into economic success, will be part of brand Poland. The speaker said the meeting in the Senate was another one devoted to the latest medical technologies. Professor Skarżyński welcomed the conference guests with the words: "I am very happy. Today we can present you at least some of the great achievements of Polish scientists." During the conference the following programmes and modern medical technologies were presented: digital pathology laboratory - a nationwide integrated computerized system of scientific research, diagnostics and education in haematology&oncology, based on complex digitization in pathomorphology (Prof. Przemysław Juszczyński, Institute of Haematology and Transfusion Medicine); Remedizer – a remote care programme for patients with mechanical heart support (Paweł Litwiński, PhD, Institute of Cardiology in Warsaw); the programme of identifying people at high risk of breast and ovarian cancer, based on genetic tests detecting mutations characteristic for the Polish population (Karolina Prajzendanc, Pomeranian Medical University); specialist child care with scoliosis

using a scoliosis meter and a specialist overlay (Mateusz Kozinoga, Poznan University of Medical Sciences); proton radiotherapy with the use of scanning beam (Liliana Stolarczyk, PhD, Eng., Institute of Nuclear Physics); hypofractionation of preoperative radiotherapy of soft tissue sarcomas (Hanna Koseła-Paterczyk, PhD, the Maria Skłodowska-Curie Memorial Centre and Institute of Oncology in Warsaw); the latest personal insulin pumps and systems for continuous monitoring of blood glucose level (Prof. Tomasz Klupa, Collegium Medicum of the Jagiellonian University); robots in oncological surgery (Mateusz Szewczyk, M.D., Poznan University of Medical Sciences, The Greater Poland Cancer Center; magnetic resonance imaging in the diagnosis of prostate cancer (Katarzyna Skinda, PhD, the Centre of Postgraduate Medical Education); a device for perfusion of the liver (Maciej Krasnodębski, PhD, Medical University of Warsaw); the latest surgical techniques of glaucoma (Anna Byszewska, PhD, Military Institute of Medicine), a new prognostic model of body weight loss for patients with giant obesity undergoing bariatric surgery (Michał Janik, M.D., Military Institute of Medicine in Warsaw); the transvascular closure of left atrial appendage to prevent stroke for patients with atrial fibrillation (Radosław Pracoń, PhD, Institute of Cardiology in Warsaw), a screening test

for oncogenic types of HPV viruses, based on LNA technology, used for the prevention and early detection of cervical cancer (Katarzyna Kokoszyńska-Brejnakowska, PhD, the Maria Skłodowska-Curie Memorial Centre and Institute of Oncology in Warsaw). Eye tracking and neuroimaging studies carried out on patients with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder (Adrian Chrobak, M.D., Collegium Medicum of the Jagiellonian University) and screening for early hearing impairment (Piotr Skarżyński, PhD, World Hearing Center in Kajetany), and also applying augmented reality in the planning of interventional cardiology surgeries (Maksymilian Opolski, PhD, Institute of Cardiology in Warsaw) and patient-derived tumor xenografts and mouse avatars in oncological studies (Magdalena Cybulska, veterinary physician, the Maria Skłodowska-Curie Memorial Centre and Institute of Oncology in Warsaw). Moreover, the participants of the conference also listened to the paper of one of the 10 laureates of this year's edition of the Supertalent in Medicine competition - Krzysztof Tomaszewski from the Collegium Medicum of the Jagiellonian University, member of the International Evidence-Based Anatomy Working Group devoted to the use of Evidence-Based Anatomy concept in the med• ical sciences. 5-6/2017 polish market

Smart City

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Economy

THE 2017 CONGRESS OF THE POLISH CHEMICAL SECTOR - WHAT IS THE CHEMICAL INDUSTRY ALL ABOUT TODAY?

DR. TOMASZ ZIELIŃSKI, President of the Board of the Polish Chamber of Chemical Industry (PIPC), talks to "Polish Market". Every year the subject matter of discussion at the Congress of the Polish Chemical Sector is the vanguard of the most important changes that will affect the shape of the Polish chemical industry. What are the current concerns of the sector? This year the Congress will be held for the fourth time. This is not yet a round anniversary, but one can already tempt for a small summary. The previous Congress editions (in 2014, 2015, and 2016) gathered around 1500 participants, 140 speakers, 80 exhibitors and 115 partners. Every year the Polish Chamber of Chemical Industry perfected not only the organization of the event, but also its content. We set ourselves a high target - when we organized the Congress for the first time in 2014, we understood that we managed to organize the most important industry event not only in Poland, but also throughout Central Europe. This was proved by many aspects: participation of the most important representatives of the world's largest chemical companies (our invitation was accepted by, among others, Dr Kurt Bock, President of BASF), numerous representatives of domestic companies (representatives of such companies as Orlen, Azoty Group, Lotos Group, Synthos, PCC Rokita, Dow, Sabic, Bayer, Evonik and many others were with us), but above all, the opinions of the participants. ”In a stream of events addressed to the chemical industry, finally, there appeared a truly PM

substantive conference, an event that had never been held before, integrating the sector”, I heard during and after the event. The 2nd and 3rd edition of the Congress strengthened its brand, but also the brand of the Polish Chamber of Chemical Industry. In 2015 and 2016 voices emerged that Poland is the place where strategies for the Central European chemical industry are being developed - these were the voices about our Congress and other activities - projects, committees and the Polish Chamber of Chemical Industry publications. How will it be this year? A high target set by ourselves makes us try even harder every year not to disappoint the participants of the Congress. This year - as always - we have taken care both of matters of organization and substance. The first one is about technical things, obvious matters, the second - it's a clue of the matter. Topics of this year's Congress will include: challenges and prospects for the Polish and European chemical industry in the times of globalization and returning protectionism, competitiveness and ways to strengthen it, innovation in the Industry 4.0 era, investments, start-ups, distribution and energy efficiency. The most important representatives of the chemical sector from Polish and, foreign companies, international trade organizations, PM

experts, advisors, representatives of the public administration and the world of science will discuss these and other topics not mentioned here. I cordially invite you to the Congress! •

About the Congress The Congress of the Polish Chemical Sector is the most important event of the chemical sector in Poland and Central Europe. Every year the guests of the Congress are managers and experts from the most important companies and institutions not only from Poland, but also from the world. The organizer (Polish Chamber of Chemical Industry) hosts the representatives of the most important Polish chemical industry companies, also representatives of the scientific world, trade organizations and entities cooperating with the sector. The previous editions of the Congress have shown how needed for entrepreneurs in the chemical sector in Poland is the creation of a platform for discussion on the conditions influencing the functioning of enterprises and challenges, threats and opportunities that the industry is facing. Today the Congress is a place where strategies and action plans for the Polish chemical sector are developed. Congress registration: www.kongrespolskachemia.pl 5-6/2017 polish market

Economy

INVENTION INNOVATION COOPERATION ABOUT WIELKOPOLSKA CENTRE FOR ADVANCED TECHNOLOGIES (WCAT)

PROF. BOGDAN MARCINIEC, DIRECTOR OF THE WCAT

The main aim of the WCAT is to establish a multidisciplinary centre bringing together the best specialists in science, natural sciences and technology sciences, focused on new materials and biomaterials having multiple applications. The essence of its activity is the integration of the Poznań scientific community in the field of advanced material and biomaterial technologies, and, in fact, the development of original, bioselective pathways for the synthesis of chemicals and biochemicals (agrochemicals - high chemicals), followed by the development of advanced technologies, biotechnologies and microtechnologies of their manufacture, intended for optoelectronics, medicine, agriculture, pharmacy and other high-tech industries.

The location of Selvita, a European biotechnology group, on the premises of the WCAT is a great illustration of our Centre’s mission, which is the creation of a multidisciplinary centre bringing together the best researchers leading large research&development projects under the Horizon 2020 European Union programme, programmes managed by the National Centre for Research and Development (NCR&D) but also in cooperation with leading R&D departments of Polish and foreign companies. Next to Selvita, which is our biggest customer, we cooperate with ten other companies. What is special about this type of cooperation is that it is focused on the development of technology based on scientific discoveries made by Polish teams and the collaborating international scientists and companies. Selvita is a good example of this. This model provides the right relationship between science (invention) and business (innovation). In the WCAT consortium, five Poznań universities and four institutes of the Polish Academy of Sciences (PAS) participate on the academic side. As for innovation, the WCAT and the Poznań Science and Technology Park, where all the necessary elements for the effective transfer of knowledge into business practice were made, will be responsible for it. It should be mentioned that in 2016 the WCAT was awarded the Eurosymbol of Synergy of Science and Business. •

ABOUT THE SELVITA COMPANY Selvita is one of the largest innovative biotechnology companies in Europe. It has opened a new laboratory in Poznań where, in the first phase, about 50 scientists will be employed - mainly chemists from Poznań. The headquarters of the company is located in Kraków while its branch in the Wielkopolska Centre for Advanced Technologies is an extension of its activity. Its location in Poznań is attractive mainly due to the city's scientific potential and modern research infrastructure.

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Infrastructure

WE DEVELOP RESIDENTIAL BUILDING IN POLAND KAZIMIERZ SMOLIŃSKI, Deputy Minister of Infrastructure and Construction

he government has adopted the National Housing Programme, a part of which is the Home Plus package responding to the housing problems in Poland. Poland’s previous housing policy was focused on supporting the construction of owner-occupied homes. It did not take into consideration problems existing on the market for homes to let, especially those with reasonable rents, and affordable rental homes built by TBS societies with money from the National Housing Fund. At present, the biggest problem is a shortage of apartments affordable to people on low and average incomes. The market offers homes intended for relatively well-todo people who are eligible for a loan. But the state should create conditions also for those who are not eligible for loans. We need rental homes. What is necessary in Poland today is building an institutional market for affordable rental homes and streamlining the construction of social housing and council homes. We should strive to gradually improve the technical condition of the existing housing stock, especially to increase its energy efficiency. Such measures, apart from raising the buildings’ comfort, contribute to a reduction in energy bills and are beneficial for the environment. In our programme, we propose a number of measures whose goal is for Poland to reach the EU’s average in terms of housing indicators. We assume that the measures planned under the National Housing Programme will enable building over 2.5 million homes by 2030, both by developers and with the assistance of the state. We need to develop residential building. The Home Plus package envisages the construction of rental apartments where the occupants will have an opportunity to ultimately become their owners. The use of state-owned land is planned as one of the ways to support the construction of these apartments. The same will be the case with the construction of council homes and homes built by TBS societies. A town-planning and building code and a system of saving for housing

purposes will have a positive impact on the commercial housing market as well, including the developer market. This comprehensive and flexible approach to the problem will enable us to attain the objectives we have set ourselves. The launch of the National Housing Programme is a result of a new approach to solving housing problems. We will not be encouraging young people to become dependent on long-term home loans. We want to offer them homes for rent. Additionally, we want to encourage people to save for housing. In 2018, we are going to launch Individual Housing Accounts supporting saving for the purchase, construction or repair of an apartment or house. This is in keeping with the government’s Strategy for Responsible Development. The measures we are going to take to support social housing will be comprehensive. We will be supporting all initiatives aimed at building social welfare apartments, council homes, sheltered accommodation and housing societies’ homes. We are also going to make legislative amendments to free up the potential of housing cooperatives for developing tenant housing. The overriding goal for us is to thoroughly reform the spatial planning system and the building process. The reform is to be implemented through the town-planning and building code we are now working on. It is a huge undertaking. We have already completed interministerial and public consultations on a draft of the code. Work is now underway to introduce the changes proposed during the consultations. We are also preparing amendments to building regulations. The amendments are designed to clarify the existing provisions, adjust them to technological development and remove obsolete regulations. We also want to introduce regulations aimed at improving structural reliability, user safety and fire safety. A team of advisers, appointed last year by the Ministry of Infrastructure and Construction, is working on it. The team is made up of representatives of institutions bringing together the largest organizations operating in the sector. • 5-6/2017 polish market

Infrastructure

ENERGY CONSUMPTION IN OFFICE BUILDINGS “The construction industry generates about 9% of European GDP and accounts for 18 million direct jobs. Construction activities that include renovation work and energy retrofits add almost twice as much value as the construction of new buildings, and SMEs contribute more than 70% of the value added in the EU building sector”. Proposal for a Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council amending Directive 2010/31/EU on the energy performance of buildings, Brussels, November 30, 2016

Massive investment over the past several years has transformed Polish cities into modern European metropolises. Innovative architecture, modernised road infrastructure and improved retail, food, cultural and leisure opportunities have helped to make the cities attractive places to live, work and play. Strategies for planning and shaping urban environments are changing as lifestyles,consumer habits and work patterns evolve alongside advances in digital technology and the changing needs of local communities and users. Building design now incorporates sustainable features to create friendly public spaces and green areas with easy access to local amenities and workplaces. With their growing functional and structural complexity, office buildings now play an increasingly important role in shaping the fabric of the urban environment. Modern construction methods and materials, as well as technological advances, have enabled developers to vary the internal structure of buildings and adapt them to serve various

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functions . Contemporary office schemes offer space that can be used as halls, receptions, atria, server rooms, machinery spaces, garages, offices, conference rooms, restaurants, shops and services units. Each structural component may require a separate technical system to guarantee an optimum level of comfort and safety. Therefore, to ensure that all these elements form an integral, functioning whole, managers and developers should install advanced automation and control systems – BMS (Building Management Systems). In some cases a framework for managing energy consumption, the Building Energy Management System (BEMS), can supplement the BMS. Together, these two systems work in harmony to achieve the most comfortable internal environment for users, and to optimise energy consumption. Today, office building design and development employs the Performance-Based Building concept, which assesses the level of comfort enjoyed by a building’s users in order to verify the quality of its architectural and structural

Infrastructure features. Developers need to offer attractive design, advanced spatial solutions and a variety of construction materials to provide the user with an optimal working environment. This process also involves the installation of top-quality heating, ventilation and air-conditioning systems (HVAC), lighting systems, hot water production systems, and integrated automatic control systems. The key strategy is thus not only investing in cost-savings activities but controlling the equilibrium between the economic factor and people’s well-being by optimizing operations such as lighting, ventilation and air conditioning. Engineers responsible for the design and installation of building systems must balance capital costs, energy costs and operational costs with users’ constantly rising comfort expectations. All this requires harmonizing the complex interactions of investors, architects, installation engineers, property managers and tenants. Because commercial properties – its development and operation – accounts for 40% of Europe’s energy consumption, the rational use of energy is becoming increasingly important. Around 75% of Europe’s buildings are not energy efficient. Therefore, increasing the quality and energy efficiency of refurbishments offers a huge energy-saving and cost-saving opportunity. The Energy Performance of Buildings Directive 2010/31/ EU requires the determination of a building’s energy performance at the design stage, and the display of its energy performance indicators and its energy performance certificate at the operational stage. In Poland a great deal of effort, from the legal point of view, is placed on the rationalization of the buildings' energy consumption, especially at the design stage. A negative consequence of such a one-dimensional analysis, one that looks only at energy use, may be that one goal (energy reduction) is attainted at the cost of the other (user comfort). Therefore, it becomes necessary to transform building assessment into a multicriteria analysis. Of these criteria, the most important is the assessment of buildings for compliance with sustainability principles. Such certification assumes that buildings will have both optimal indoor air quality and lower environmental impact. In order to compare them in terms of fulfilling these criteria, a number of certification schemes have been created. In Poland the most widely used schemes are the LEED™ and BREEAM® systems, which are also the most popular with investors because they can confirm the quality of a building at each stage of the design, construction and operation stages (eg LEED BD+C, BREEAM International NC). The assessment schemes dedicated to tenants (eg LEED ID+C, BREEAM RFO) are a gainful complement to them. In the case of existing buildings, which are managed to a higher standard, the certificates confirming high quality management (eg LEED O+M, BREEAM In-Use) seem to be the most valuable.

METHODOLOGY AND METHODS OF DATA COMPILATION This study uses an innovative approach to the analysis of the energy consumption of office buildings. It is the first study in Europe to utilise elements of traditional data

compilation, such as surveys and interviews, and statistical analysis, such as data comparison with performance indicators, and has yielded detailed, accurate conclusions. Its innovative elements comprise:

THE PILOT APPLICATION OF THE DELPHI METHOD This involves presenting the results of the analysis to an external group of experts with specific knowledge and experience in the selected data set.

A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF THE ENERGY MODEL OF THE BUILDING The operating reference model and the measurements recorded in the Building Management System (BMS).

PREPARATION OF THE GREENFM REPORTS ON THE INDIVIDUAL BUILDINGS These ensure that the energy data for each building is reliable by ranking the energy consumption of the building alongside its expected consumption. They also consider how the building is used, how much energy it uses based on monthly analyses, and suggest actions for the technical department to take, such as refurbishments, or system upgrade or replacement. The methodology is a practical implementation of the objectives presented on November 30, 2016 in the proposal of changes to Directive 2010/31/ EU of the European Parliament and of the Council on the energy performance of buildings. The approach specified in this directive allows member states to introduce systems that monitor and analyse energy consumption continually, and to perform ongoing comparative analyses of the energy performance of buildings. It is the first study which uses the method of analysis of energy performance that separates the energy profile of the tenants/ users from the profile of the building.

SURVEY-BASED COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS The first stage of the research included the acquisition of data, by means of a survey, on the buildings and their construction, embedded systems, technical equipment, heating, cooling and electricity sources.

TENANTS’ SHARE OF ELECTRICITY CONSUMPTION IN A BUILDING’S TOTAL ENERGY BALANCE The analysis compared the electricity consumption of the tenants of a building to the total electricity consumption of the building. The average was 55%, and the extremes were 20% and 97%. The analysis revealed the amount of electricity consumed by the tenants, and how this amount affected the energy balance of the building and the operation of HVAC systems.

ENERGY PERFORMANCE OF THE BUILDING – ELECTRICITY V. HEATING The next step was to rank the buildings in terms of their energy performance by comparing two basic 5-6/2017 polish market

Infrastructure

energy parameters – heat consumption and electricity consumption. Taking into consideration the energy performance of the building and the amount of energy used by its tenants, the study excluded the electricity consumption by the tenants in its analysis. Excluding the energy used by the building’s tenants allowed for a more detailed determination of the building’s energy performance, and yielded a correlation between heat and (non-process) electricity consumption, highlighting the impact of the tenants’ energy consumption habits on the building’s total energy performance. Because compliance with the principles of sustainable development define much of the construction industry’s activity, the analysis looked at the building’s key energy indicators in the context of its sustainable development certificate (or green certificate).

COMPARISON OF CERTIFIED AND NON-CERTIFIED BUILDINGS

COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS BASED ON THE ENERGY MODEL OF THE BUILDING

The average total electricity consumption of certified buildings was 142 kWh/m2. This is only marginally below the consumption of uncertified buildings, 144 kWh/m². The average electricity consumption, around 160 kWh/m², was comparable to the results of analyses presented in a 2014 report entitled “Operational Costs of Office Buildings”, covering 48 properties, prepared by the Construction Marketing Group together with partners. Comparing electricity consumption to a building’s total area, the study found little correlation between a building’s certificate type and degree, and its electricity consumption. The study did, however, find that heating consumption in certified buildings was 26% lower than the consumption in uncertified buildings.

The energy model for each building was calculated from energy data supplied by the respondents – property managers and technical departments – of that building. A reference model based on current minimum legal requirements and taking into account basic design and functionality was also developed for every building. Then the energy consumption relative to the reference model for the building was calculated. This methodology served to minimise differences connected to the buildings’ different energy operations, which depend mostly on the users, and allowed the determination of energy savings.

THE USER’S/TENANT’S ROLE

KEY FINDINGS

This part of the study describes the effect of tenants’ energy use habits on the total energy balance of buildings. In the first step, the study analysed tenants’ electricity consumption in relation to their leased area, in the context of the building’s energy certificate. The analysis found that in certified buildings, tenants’ average electricity consumption per square meter of leased area was 150 kWh/m², a figure only marginally less than the energy consumption of non-certified buildings of 159 kWh/m². It is thus difficult to see a correlation between the certificate, its degree and the amount of energy consumption. Moreover, some buildings with the highest certification degrees (BREEAM Excellent and LEED Platinum) had the highest indicators in the group. Therefore, the study concluded that:

• The investor has a significant effect on the energy performance of a building. Developing a building according to the specifications of certification systems may yield operational energy savings of 30% or more. This could equate to operational cost savings of PLN 500 000 annually.

• electricity consumption in certified and non-certified buildings was similar; • because of the small sample size, it was not possible to find a correlation between a building’s electricity consumption and its type and level of certificate.

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The detailed analysis of electricity consumption by the tenants, the electricity consumption by the other components of the building and the heat consumption showed that these three factors varied considerably among all the buildings analysed in the study. The following section looks at each of these factors and its effect on a building’s total energy consumption. The share of energy consumed by tenants showed a wide variation, 14% to 65%. A wide variation was also seen in the percentage of a building’s total energy consumption that is consumed by the building’s users. It was therefore necessary to develop a more complex method of analysis that separates the energy profile of the tenants from the profile of the building; that is, one that separates the consumption issues connected to tenants’ energy consumption from consumption issues connected to the building’s investor/owner and for which the investor/ owner is responsible. An energy model of the building was used.

• Buildings certified at an operation stage have limited energy savings potential owing to the existing building structure. However, they can improve their energy efficiency performance and reduce their energy costs through careful management of their technical infrastructure. • Buildings constructed to full certification standards have greater potential for energy savings because energy-efficient processes are applied from the beginning of the development. • Complementing property management activities with the ongoing GreenFM processes means that up-to-date, sustainability-oriented property management techniques are in operation, construction and systems are verified as energy efficient and cost savings are obtainable. GreenFM

Infrastructure

service also provides a useful database for comparison and analysis. • Tenants’ energy use habits have a critical impact on a building’s energy consumption. Tenants were found to be responsible for 14% to 65% of a building’s total electricity consumption.

As one of the world’s leading commercial property managers, Cushman & Wakefield is committed to introducing and implementing sustainable development initiatives for office buildings. We took part in this study to gain in-depth insight into the mechanisms that affect energy performance in different buildings and the steps property managers can take to make buildings more energy efficient and reduce their running costs. The analysis covered 20 buildings in Poland, including office buildings managed by our company. Using a novel energy-use model and a unique approach to assessing energy issues in office buildings, we have proved that the end user, the tenant – not the attributes of the building itself – is the most important factor determining a building’s energy performance. The model is also an effective tool for monitoring energy consumption in different buildings, regardless of their user type. Until now, building energy-use benchmarks did not yield accurate results, because they did not separate the energy used by a building’s tenants from the building’s total energy use. The report provided us with data that will help develop methods to optimise energy consumption. What is more, the EU is likely soon to require the collection and processing of buildings’ energy-use data. By using facility management techniques, we are now able to identify areas where energy consumption is excessive or energy is used inefficiently, and adjust the relevant parameters appropriately. A standard procedure implemented by Cushman & Wakefield involves monitoring all electricity and heat energy consumption and comparing the results

• This analysis is the first of many. Its conclusions will form the basis for more analyses conducted using its methodology, to create a dynamic, up-to-date comprehensive picture of the energy efficiency of Polish office buildings. These analyses will be co-ordinated under the auspices of the National Association for Supporting the Sustainable Building Industry (OSWBZ). •

to historical data. We also educate our tenants on energy efficiency and encourage them to alter their energy consumption habits. As a manager of more than 30 office buildings in Poland, Cushman & Wakefield keeps an eye on the energy-consuming systems – electricity and heating – in each building and recommends upgrades and improvements to the owners. As we monitor systems for signs of wear and tear, and keep abreast of new products and technological advances in energy use, we have found that many office buildings in Poland are in urgent need of system replacement or upgrades – modernisation. This applies in particular to HVAC systems, which consume significant amounts of electricity. A replacement or upgrade boosts the energy efficiency of the system and improves the energy balance of the building. Even the best system management and maintenance merely postpones the need for modernisation; it is no substitute for it. We want to demonstrate that modernisation makes it possible to achieve real savings while maintaining the same level of comfort. Our analysis is a pioneering study and will facilitate the development of better energy management systems for buildings, as well as refine the use and management of existing systems. We intend to expand these analyses to a larger sample of Polish office buildings, using the same methodology, to create an even more accurate picture of the energy profile of this market. This will be a useful tool for owners, developers and managers who, through implementation of proper property and facility management activities, are aiming for energy efficient buildings and reduced costs.

ZUZANNA PACIORKIEWICZ MRICS PARTNER, BUSINESS SPACE ASSET SERVICES POLAND, EMEA ASSET SERVICES, CUSHMAN & WAKEFIELD

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Infrastructure

WE SET TRENDS MIKOŁAJ PLACEK, President of Oknoplast Sp. z o.o., talks to Marcin Haber about the history of the Polish industry manufacturing PVC windows, untypical foreign promotion and expanding public knowledge of windows.

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Infrastructure

Let us start with the direct question: Where has the phenomenon of Polish windows come from? Polish window producers, in particular Oknoplast, are conquering foreign markets increasingly boldly. How did it begin? It all started in the early 1990s, with the change of Poland’s political system. PM

NOW, POLISH WINDOWS ARE VALUED FOR THEIR GOOD QUALITY AND RELATIVELY LOW PRICE. WHAT IS MORE, POLISH MANUFACTURERS, SUCH AS OKNOPLAST, HAVE STARTED TO INTRODUCE INNOVATIVE SOLUTIONS TO THE SECTOR.

Polish people were able to free up their spirit of enterprise... That was one factor. The other was the poor condition of buildings in Poland, something which paradoxically helped us. Wooden windows, which warped easily and were of very poor quality, reigned supreme in Polish homes in the 1990s. People tried to seal their windows themselves, especially in winter, to prevent draughts. In those times, wooden windows were associated with a product of low quality. Meanwhile, we launched on the market a new product: PVC windows with good parameters and functionality. Importantly, people’s mindset also changed in that period as they started to pay more attention to the standard of their homes and life. As a result, they wanted to buy products of good quality. PM

There appeared a boom and everyone had white plastic windows installed in their homes. These were products of good quality – durable and airtight. This is why they gained great popularity so quickly and became fashionable. And we sold more and more of them. In fact, in a matter of a dozen years or so we grew to become a major player on the European market. In the meantime, in 2004, Poland joined the European Union. This also offered us new opportunities. We could start exporting our products on a large scale. Since that moment our exports have been growing steadily, which enabled us to increase our production capacity. What is more, the economies of scale boosted the competitiveness of Polish window producers. At the beginning, most of them competed in price on foreign markets. However, the products they offered were often of low quality. But, as is the case with emerging markets, the quality was gradually improving. Now, Polish windows are valued for their good quality and relatively low price. What is more, Polish manufacturers, such as Oknoplast, have started to introduce innovative solutions to the sector. All this enabled Poland to become the largest producer of PVC windows on the European market. PM

southern Poland near Kraków. The company manufactures and sells PVC windows, doors and roller shutters in the premium segment. These are top-quality innovative products, which definitely stand out against the competition. The second brand is the WnD company located in central Poland near Łódź. We have established it to respond to the needs of the economy segment of the market. We apply there a slightly different business concept, similar to the concept of other Polish window producers: broad distribution and a product of good quality, but sold without additional services. The third of our companies is Aluhaus, a brand of aluminium windows and doors in the premium segment. Here we focus mainly on the production of windows and doors for single-family houses and buildings with glass and aluminium facades.

What is the structure of the Group? Oknoplast Group is made up of three brands and three manufacturing sites. The first one, Oknoplast, is located in

What percentage of your output is exported? In 2016, exports accounted for around 73% of the overall sales of Oknoplast Group. The remaining 27% of our output was sold on the domestic market. One should remember that the Polish market has its limitations. Oknoplast has been present in Poland for 23 years. We have many sales offices in Poland. Actually, we have an office in every Polish

Oknoplast alone makes 1.5 million windows annually. Indeed, this is the figure for 2016. But it is worth noting that this is not our maximum potential. The production capacity of Oknoplast Group as a whole is in the order of 2 million windows annually. PM

5-6/2017 polish market

Infrastructure

county. The only way to expand our presence on the market is through acquisitions of businesses competing with us. Meanwhile, on foreign markets we can still expand geographically. Last year, we entered the Scandinavian market and we see there a big potential for our activity. Are you thinking about new markets for expansion? As I said, we entered the Swedish, Norwegian and Danish markets last year. This is where we are expanding our activity now and we have the ambition to become a leader in the PVC windows and doors segment on these markets in a matter of several years. PM

perfectly in keeping with the latest trends in designing buildings. I have observed for many years the sectors and companies which deal with architecture, and interior design and finishing. The window has to match the colour of the floor, walls and furniture. I have also noticed that architects have come to love glazing. More and more buildings now have more of windowpanes than walls. I realized that this has to be translated into our products. We have developed a window frame able to let in 22% more light than windows of the same size produced by the competition. This is yet another trend we have managed to promote in Europe. You have mentioned a number of solutions used in your windows. Where are these solutions developed? Do you work with universities and research institutes? If you want to think about innovation you have to do it on a large scale and invest in the right activities. You should not rely exclusively on your own ideas. You should be open to the work of other institutions and creative people. Of course, we have our R&D department at Oknoplast where we employ many talented scientists. We also cooperate with Polish and foreign universities of technology and start-ups which want to introduce innovations in our industry. Opinions of suppliers are also important in our work because they have direct contact with clients and often show us, by voicing their requirements for products, new directions for the development of innovation. An important aspect of our work is tracking trends in various sectors related to ours, like for example furniture-making and interior design. It should be stressed that in the end what matters is the market and how the innovation is received by clients. It is important to combine two kinds of approach. One is the market approach, in which the client’s expectations are taken into consideration. The other is the creative approach, which means our intention to introduce changes. PM

The word “innovations” has already been used during our conversation. What can be innovative about such a seemingly simple product as a window? It may seem that windows differ little among each other. But nothing could be further from the truth. Every window has some basic functions, such as ventilation, contact with the outside world and thermal insulation. Window innovations usually involve technology, but not always. Over the 23 years of our activity we have launched around 40 innovative solutions on the market. In many cases, we were the first company in Europe to offer these innovations, setting trends for the development of windows and doors on European markets. At that time, windowpanes with the U-value (thermal transmittance) of 2.9 were popular. We launched a windowpane with the U-value of 1.3, then 1.1 and 1.0. Slightly later, we reduced the Uvalue to 0.3 and presented this windowpane at a fair in Nuremberg and at other exhibitions. In 2003, we took another bold step and developed a window frame 70 millimetres thick. The standard thickness of frames had previously been 58 millimetres. We also introduced innovative solutions to make our windows more ergonomic: we were a pioneer in offering balcony doors with a low sill. Design is also a very important sphere of innovation for us. The window ceased to be an ordinary building product a long time ago. Instead, it has become an important element of interior décor. This is why we have decided to take care of every detail, like for example the colour of window seals. Another example is our new window called Pixel. It is the best embodiment of the company’s aspirations to combine design and technology. The innovative system is the first product of its kind on the European market and is PM

28 polish market

There is more and more talk about lowenergy and zero-energy buildings, that is ones which use less energy for heating and lighting and are almost self-sufficient in their energy needs. As a producer of modern windows, Oknoplast may have a lot to say about it. What is your view of this trend? We are looking at the concept of zero-energy buildings, but we remember that so far it has been a niche market. I believe, however, PM

that it is an interesting topic and we could offer many attractive solutions in this respect. We have products with good thermal insulation performance. They are perfectly in keeping with the concept of zero-energy buildings. Thermal insulation solutions for windows are very advanced technologically. But this does not mean that we are not working on new solutions. Let us talk a bit more extensively about your presence abroad and your quite unusual way of communicating on foreign markets. Several years ago Oknoplast chose a very bold way of promotion. You invested in sponsoring three football clubs: Borussia Dortmund, Inter Milan and Olimpique Lyonnais. Where did the idea of this kind of brand communication strategy come from? As I observed Polish business over the years, I noticed that our entrepreneurs somewhat neglected building brand awareness in the B2C sector. They usually based their success on production: they thought first of all about making a good product and then selling it under a foreign company’s brand name because that was easier. As a result, it was more difficult for other Polish companies to build their brands abroad. In 2004, before Poland’s entry to the European Union, the country was still associated mainly with Pope John Paul II, Lech Wałęsa and, perhaps, organic food. It was difficult to communicate to foreign consumers that the Polish company Oknoplast has technologically advanced products. We thought for a long time which strategy to choose: broad distribution without promoting our original brand or building something lasting – a brand recognized abroad enabling us to develop for many years, introduce innovations and set trends in Europe. Of course, we chose the latter. We decided to make our presence known in Europe by means of very strong and reputable brands: Borussia Dortmund, Inter Milan and Olimpique Lyonnais. It should be remembered that these clubs are known not only on local markets – in Germany, Italy and France – but also globally through their participation in international competitions. And 600 million people have watched a recent Derby of Italia match between Inter Milan and Juventus Turin. PM

And they could see Oknoplast’s logo on television. Indeed. It was quite a breakthrough move on our part. We took this bold step as the first Polish company and it got a lot of publicity PM

Infrastructure

in the media. We sent the simple message that we are not “some company from Poland,” but a company intending to enter these foreign markets, stay there, become established and start building its position as a leader. And, which is the most important, we have managed to do so on the French, Italian and German markets. My ambition has never been to enter a few dozen markets and win a small share of a few per cent in them. I always wanted to achieve the situation we have today where Oknoplast is present on a dozen or so markets and on each of them is the leader in PVC windows or strives to gain this position. Support from the three football clubs helped us very much in this respect. For one season we were also the titular sponsor of the Italian basketball club Virtus Bologna. It enjoys a similar prestige and recognisability in basketball as Inter Milan does in football. The club changed its name to Oknoplast Bologna. Our logo was almost everywhere – on T-shirts, on the floor and in advertising materials. Unfortunately, it turned out that the scale of promotion in the case of basketball is not quite the same as with football.

It should be remembered that this sponsorship for sports clubs was only the icing on the cake of our marketing activities. We were also building the Oknoplast brand in a bottom-up approach, steadily and slowly. In each country we have our own marketing department, we work with advertising agencies, we are present in the media. We conduct a large-scale campaign to build the Oknoplast brand abroad. Your sponsorship for the football clubs must have been a huge investment? Did it pay off? Of course, it definitely did. We are operating on these markets, gradually raising our sales. On each of them we are among the top players when it comes to market share. PM

Tell us about the Oknoplast Lab project. It is yet another initiative aimed at directly reaching the client. We want to be increasingly close to clients, explaining them why a good window is such an important thing. As I said at the beginning, PM

a window only seems to be a simple product, but it has very important functions in our life. Through this project we want to teach clients about the features of a good product and show them what they should pay attention to when choosing windows. Oknoplast Lab is a series of nine short films explaining product features in a way which is very accessible even for people who know almost nothing about windows. We will be supporting the films through an online campaign. It is the first project of this kind in the building sector. Our observations show that the sector often communicates with the consumer using complicated specialist terminology. Meanwhile, an average buyer has no time and does not want to deliberate about the meaning of thermal insulation parameters or noise insulation. This is why we have decided to communicate with the clients by telling them about the benefit they can get. Shortly speaking, we want to talk to the client in a comprehensible manner so as to make choosing windows an interesting experience for them rather than a stressful one. • 5-6/2017 polish market

Infrastructure

THE ITB METHODS FOR ENVIRONMENTAL

ASSESSMENT OF CONSTRUCTION PRODUCTS AND BUILDINGS

MICHAŁ PIASECKI, Head of Thermal Physics, Acoustics and Environment Department, Building Research Institute (ITB) 30 polish market

ROBERT GERYŁO, Deputy Director for Strategy and Development, Building Research Institute (ITB)

Infrastructure

he construction sector becomes increasingly aware of sustainability aspects including the environmental, social and economic dimension. The new group of professionals being able to design, erect and assess sustainable buildings expands very quickly into the recognized world-class level. Now, the stakeholders should focus on the scale of implementation. There are more than 300 office and retail buildings “green certified” in Poland but the same success is still required for other types of buildings. Environmental assessments and certifications are hardly used in the residential sector. There are some relevant issues to be considered soon on the way to the national practice: the certification and assessment should not be expensive and time-consuming. The sustainable design and assessment methods should be publicly available, ready for use in accordance with the national construction practice for all national investors, the best environmental practices should be recognized in accordance with the existing regulations and the sustainable assessment approach should fit all types of buildings. Green approach and sustainable assessment should be important for users of office buildings, single family and multifamily buildings, as well as schools and hospitals whose suitably designed interiors may become the key to well-being, comfort and overall satisfaction. Changes in the construction sector towards a “sustainable way of thinking” lead to the need for information on the environmental performance of buildings and construction products. The way of presenting information must be transparent, the information must be accurate, verifiable, comparable within a given category and easily accessible to target customers and potential users. Meeting the expectations of the domestic market, the Building Research Institute (ITB) has developed and implemented a comprehensive methodology for the environmental assessment of construction products and buildings. The environmental declaration for construction products Environmental Product Declaration, (EPD) is a clear statement coming with adequate technical data, which shows the significant impact and environmental aspects of the product life cycle determined for a product unit. An EPD communicates verifiable, accurate, non-misleading environmental information for products and their applications, thereby supporting scientifically based, fair choices and stimulating the potential for market driven continuous environmental improvement. An EPDs can be used to compare the products from the point of view of their environmental impacts and resources consumption. EPDs may be used to assess the parts of the building in which the product was applied, and to assess the entire building environmental performance for example supporting a design process via BIM tools. The ITB-EPD Programme (the first EPD was issued in 2004) provides the procedure for Environmental Product Declarations Type III for construction products in compilance with the PN-EN ISO 14025 and PN-EN 15804 standards. Every year the programme procedure is updated to fit the new environmental standards and regulations. ITB-EPD reduces the effort for building product manufacturers while the industry is enabled to communicate relevant environmental data in a widely recognized format. The programme is voluntary and covers all construction products as it is defined in Annex IV of

the European Construction Products Regulation (305/2011). It is open to all interested construction product manufacturers. The ITB cooperates with other European EPD providers via Eco-Platform (www.eco-platform.org) to coordinate efforts to assist industry sectors while reducing verification effort in different countries. So far in Poland, dozens of construction products have been labelled with EPD so Poland actually has the 8th place in the world by the number of issued EPDs. EPD declarations verified by the ECO members can be used in the environmental assessment of buildings. EPD can provide information on the whole life-cycle of products through the construction and management of buildings and across its value chain, including material and construction products manufacturing, design and engineering services, onsite construction and service companies, property developers and facility managers, and the end of life phase. The ITB method for determining the environmental performance of buildings takes into account aspects of environmental quality, functionality and the reduction of adverse impact on the environment. The ratio of the cumulative results of the assessments of aspects determines the value of the environmental efficiency factor and five classes of the building's sustainability. The assessment criteria have been defined, together with indicators based on national regulations and guidelines. Five main specified areas of the assessment were considered: comfort, hygiene and health, safety of use, usability, ability to adapt, use of energy and environmental impact. The method is relatively fast and inexpensive and is related to the right to use the ITB-EKO registered mark. The main issues for environment sustainability have been related to environmental quality, including the reduction of inconvenience, risks and related costs as well as health, comfort and indoor environment quality. This may also be confirmed by the outcomes of international standardisation in this field. The international standards (ISO/TC 59/SC 17 – Sustainability in buildings and civil engineering works) and European standards (CEN/TC 350 – Sustainability of construction works) cover life-cycle assessment of environmental, social and economic performance. In practice, a method based on a three-dimensional energy-related evaluation can be used to determine the optimum value of the building’s energy performance resulting in the minimum value of life-cycle cost and environmental impact. In such a method, energy-related social performance (required indoor comfort: thermal and visual as well as air quality) is implicitly included as an input for energy performance. Since environmental impacts (e.g. emission of gases resulting from energy use) may be described in terms of cost, the assessment can be performed in two dimensions: energy performance versus total cost during the estimated economic life cycle, where the cost is determined by taking into account energy-related investments, maintenance and disposal costs and energy use costs as well as the benefits from on-site energy production from renewable sources. Summarizing, the “green” investments in Poland are often linked to international capital. The ITB intends to contribute to pro-environmental local investors' and producers' decisions so that they have proper tools for meeting the growing sustainable market demands and becoming more competitive in the long run. • 5-6/2017 polish market

GDDKIA is setting

Infrastructure

THE PACE

The General Directorate for National Roads and Motorways (GDDKiA) operates 17,500 kilometres of roads. By the end of 2019 it plans to complete the construction of 800 kilometres of new roads and award more contracts. Among the planned projects is the construction of road sections making part of the international routes Via Carpatia and Via Baltica. All the projects will be carried out under the amended law on public procurement. Krzysztof Kondraciuk, General Director for National Roads and Motorways, tells “Polish Market” about GDDKiA’s plans for coming years. What are GDDKiA’s plans? How many kilometres of new roads can we expect in the present EU financial period? The General Directorate for National Roads and Motorways manages a network of roads whose length exceeds 17,500 kilometres. At present, drivers in Poland have at their disposal nearly 3,200 kilometres of roads designed for fast traffic: 1,627 kilometres of motorways and 1,552 kilometres of expressways. Additionally, 1,300 kilometres of roads are under constructions and tender processes have begun for another 800 kilometres. In 2017, we have already completed two projects: the ring road of Wieluń, which is part of the DK-74 road, and a section of the S5 road, almost 32 kilometres long, bypassing Gniezno. By the end of the year we plan to open to traffic more sections of the most important expressways – S3, S5, S7 and S8 – and ring roads with a total length of around 360 kilometres. Next year, we plan to extend the road network by another 400 kilometres, most of which will be expressways. As a result, at the end of 2018 Szczecin will be linked to the A4 motorway thanks to the S3 expressway, Białystok will be linked to Warsaw by the S8 expressway, and the Tricity will be linked by the S7 expressway to the border between Warmińsko-Mazurskie and Mazowieckie provinces. The year 2019 will see a similar number of kilometres opened to traffic. At the beginning of 2020 drivers will be able to travel along the whole lengths of the main expressway routes in our country. I mean, for example, the S17 from Warsaw to Lublin, the S5 from the A1 motorway in the vicinity of Grudziądz to Wrocław via Bydgoszcz and Poznań, and the S6 from Goleniów to Koszalin. Huge financial outlays are set aside for all the road sections that we will be successively opening to traffic. The value of construction works for which contracts were signed in this financial period is PLN42 billion while initially GDDKiA had planned to spend on them more than PM

32 polish market

PLN54 billion. In this financial period, the total spending on the projects (in tender processes, under construction and already completed) - including the cost of documentation, construction works, supervision, property purchase, archaeological work and so on – will exceed PLN85 billion.

320 kilometres long. Sections with a total length of 72.5 kilometres have already been built while almost 60 kilometres now under construction will soon be opened to traffic. Tender processes have started for the remaining 190 kilometres. The completion of the project is expected at the end of 2021. •

How do projects managed by GDDKiA correspond to the concepts of the international routes Via Carpatia and Via Baltica? The Via Carpatia and Via Baltica routes run along international roads which play the role of the most important transit routes linking Poland, the Baltic states and Southern Europe. In 2017, we started six tender processes for the construction of around 91 kilometres of Via Baltica (six stretches of the S61 road) and 14 tender processes for contracts for supervision over the construction works. In 2017, tenders were submitted in 19 ongoing tender processes for the construction of 188 kilometres of roads, with the value of the works exceeding PLN6 billion. Via Carpatia is to run in Poland along the S61, S16 and S19 expressways. Its length is to be around 680 kilometres. Building a network of expressways is the main investment priority of the Government Programme for the Construction of National Roads for the years 20142023, apart from completing the construction of the motorway network. The sections of Via Carpatia already completed have a total length of 70 kilometres, the sections now under construction have a length of 32 kilometres while another 153 kilometres are waiting for the selection of contractors. The remaining 400 kilometres of Via Carpatia are at different stages of preparatory work. It is planned that they will be built in the second part of the Programme for the Construction of National Roads. Via Baltica runs in Poland along the S8 expressway from Warsaw to Ostrów Mazowiecka and along the S61 expressway from Ostrów Mazowiecka to Budzisko on the Polish-Lithuanian border. This part of Via Baltica is to be around

CHANGES TO THE LAW ON PUBLIC PROCUREMENT

Knowledge and experience – construction works: • •

•

The contractor must have knowledge and experience of seven years; The contractor must have experience from carrying out one task; its value is 50% of the estimated value, but no more than PLN200 million net; Experience in the construction of bridges according to the following rule: for every five structures planned for construction experience required from building one structure (reduction from the 50% ratio to 20%).

Obligation imposed on the contractor to carry out the key part of the project by themselves: • •

pavement works, pavement works and earthworks.

New non-price evaluation criteria: • • • • •

time for completion, contractor’s personnel, anti-skid properties of the pavement, longitudinal profile of the pavement, native soil to be used on the construction site.

New agreements with contractors – key changes: • • • • • •

equitable risk-sharing, independent engineer, protection of subcontractors, less disputes and their faster settlement, reasonable system of damages, obligation to hire staff under contracts of employment.

Infrastructure

LOOKING FOR COMMON SENSE

SOLUTIONS DARIUSZ BLOCHER, President and Managing Director of Budimex SA, talks to “Polish Market.”

In 2016 Budimex won the biggest number of contracts among all companies present on the Polish construction market. Can a slowdown now be expected, or are you going to try to win as many contracts as possible to secure successive investment projects? In 2016, we won contracts totalling PLN 5.6 billion, while the year before we had signed contracts to the tune of nearly PLN 7 billion. This shows a roughly 20% difference year on year. The whole construction market has shrunk by about 38-40% in those segments we operate in. The cause was mainly a decline in the number of infrastructure contracts awarded by the General Directorate for National Roads and Motorways (GDDKiA) and local councils. In 2015 the General Directorate had announced tenders valued at over PLN20 billion. Last year, the sum amounted to merely PLN 600 million. You could say that in 2016 the market practically dried up. Nevertheless, we were doing fairly well as we looked for other sources of income. We won tenders in general construction – to the tune of nearly PLN 2.8 billion, power engineering, as well as small-scale road-building tenders. This year we have observed that the market is picking up. The end of last year and the beginning of this year have seen a price war between contractors, as a result of which our bids are 20% more expensive than the lowestpriced bids. We would love to be able to win more contracts, but definitely not at such prices, because quality would suffer, as well as the earnings of workers, subcontractors and suppliers. That is not the road we are prepared to take. On the other hand, we cannot wait endlessly for prices to stabilize. After all, we have a crew of more than 6,000 and we must make sure that they do have jobs to do. PM

You have mentioned a significant drop in pricing. In what way is it related to changes introduced in the Public Procurement Law? The plan was to drop the former requirement that a contract should be awarded to

the bidder offering the lowest price. What is more, a set of provisions has been introduced that were supposed to drive investment costs up… For now it is a dead letter. New regulations concern tenders invited as of June 2016. That is why most tenders now being finalized are still based on the old regulations. Even in tenders published according to the new regulations, where the price criterion may not exceed 60%, the new mechanism still does not come into play because other provisions, such as the warranty period, a shortened time of execution and quality standards, are declared by bidders at maximum levels, without enough consideration given to possible consequences. If all the bidders submit maximum values of non-price criteria, at the end of the day the price becomes the deal breaker. That is why we are yet to observe a positive impact of the new regulations. One of the provisions of the Law concerns anti-skid properties of the road pavement, something that is proving quite controversial. It has been openly said that this will drive up investment costs and will significantly affect the length of the warranty period offered by the bidder. There are two problems relating to the anti-skid properties provision. One is that there is no efficient, standardized method of testing road surface roughness. The presently-used method is an old one. It consists in mounting a tyre of a strictly defined model onto a special appliance. Then the tyre is rolled down the road, followed by tyre wear tests. Now, the type of tyre required for this test is no longer in production. A new method should be developed, or one of the methods applied abroad should be introduced. The other issue is the expected roughness level. We reckon that the maximum level of roughness which wins the bidder the highest number of points, is virtually impossible to achieve, or too costly to achieve. One PM

should bear it in mind that it is not true that the rougher, the surface the better the road is. You need to be pragmatic in this respect… … It has an impact on, among other things, noise and accelerated wear suffered by motor vehicles… That is right. The rougher the surface, the bigger the noise and the fastest the tyre wear, while this does not significantly improve road grip properties of vehicles, especially those quipped with the ABS system. But I would like to make it clear that I believe that the overall direction that has been taken is a correct one. However, realistic factors should be taken into account. There is still plenty to be done in this respect. PM

How ready are construction companies to build roads with a rougher road surface? When it comes to the standard quoted in the Ministry of Infrastructure and Construction regulation, as long as we stick to the construction technology regime, in the case of concrete and asphalt, we are capable of achieving surfaces like this using traditional methods. Now, in terms of the maximum roughness standard, adherence to which wins you points as a bidder in some tenders, in our opinion it cannot easily be achieved. It calls for the use of some very pricey aggregate to achieve extra roughness through applying a special type of crushed stone. However, the effect does not last because this added crushed stone is gradually peeled away by cars speeding down the road. To maintain the required roughness level, you would need to reinstate the surface by making up for the lost crushed stone every two years or so. Naturally, such high standards are achievable, but at a very high cost. My suggestion is for this standard to be set at reasonable levels. Let us follow the example of countries with more experience in motorway construction like Germany and • Italy. PM

5-6/2017 polish market

Infrastructure

DOES GREEN MEAN MORE EXPENSIVE? KONRAD PŁOCHOCKI, General Director of the Polish Association of Developers (PZFD), talks to “Polish Market.” Speaking about energy-efficient buildings, we often think only about lower maintenance costs. But are we right? Is there anything more to it? In most cases, energy-efficient buildings mean not only lower maintenance costs. Attention is increasingly paid to the negative impact of building materials production on the natural environment and a prospect for easier and more environment-friendly recycling of the materials after demolition. Many companies realize that materials may be produced locally. An interesting example is the project to modernize Empire State Building. Studies have shown that limited modernization - consisting of improvements to the heating and ventilation systems, and the renovation of the windows - would be a better option, and beneficial for the natural environment as well. The windows were renovated on the spot, with a workshop arranged on one of the floors where the windows were repaired, sealed and filled with a special kind of gas. PM

Until recently we spoke about energy-efficient building in the context of large commercial properties. But the trend has now spread to housing construction. Is that because people are increasingly aware of the consequences of environmental pollution and demand environment-friendly solutions? Opinions voiced by the public show that people demand environment-friendly solutions. But the situation changes when they start calculating the costs. Usually, environment-friendly systems involve not only higher initial outlays, but also higher servicing costs. This is the case with heat recovery systems, for instance, where filters need to be changed regularly. Several years ago developers enthusiastically started to introduce green solutions. It turned out, however, that such homes sell very poorly. An excellent example is a housing estate constructed by a major developer. One of the buildings was equipped with environment-friendly solutions. Apartments in this building were several per cent more expensive, meaning that the price per square metre was by several hundred zlotys higher compared to PM

34 polish market

the other buildings. Apartments in this building attracted the least interest from buyers and were still available long after all the standard apartments had sold out. Today, we are seeing a trend towards costoptimum solutions to strike a balance between environmental and economic considerations. Interestingly, this trend has led to the relaxation of energy-efficiency requirements in some countries, like for example Britain. A similar process is going on in Germany where extensive research has shown clearly that the limit of cost-effectiveness has been crossed and that any additional euro, if invested, has no chance of paying back. We can expect that more reasonable regulations will also be adopted in Poland, which has set very ambitious requirements for new buildings. What is now in vogue in construction? What are the trends? Charging stations for electric cars, perhaps? First, it is worth stressing that environment-friendly does not always mean comfortable. The most environment-friendly apartment would be a small one, in a densely built-up area, with very small windows, without a parking space and occupied by a person using exclusively public transport. The scattered development we like so much is very unfriendly to the environment because it means the need to occupy green areas to build roads and utility infrastructure, not to mention traffic jams and heat losses from detached buildings. And finally, there is the problem of smog, a very topical issue now. The main source of smog is home furnaces fired by fuels of poor quality and even waste. All blocks of apartments built nowadays are connected to a district heating network or have environment-friendly heating sources. Speaking about the fashion for environment-friendly solutions, it is worth mentioning the increasingly popular systems where rainwater is used to flush toilets, or is collected and used to water gardens. People also appreciate green facades and roof gardens. The latter, in particular, have a huge potential because roofs have been the least used part of • buildings so far. PM

Konrad Płochocki, legal adviser, General Director of the Polish Association of Developers (PZFD). He worked for international law firms and institutions dealing with real estate sales and financing, including CMS Cameron McKenna as a member of the banking and international financing team. He has taken part in numerous legislative processes, including work on the law on developers. He is an author of press articles on real property registers, mortgage and the law on developers. He is also a speaker at seminars and a lecturer for post-graduate courses at the Warsaw School of Economics (SGH) and the Kozminski University. He is a member of the Board of Directors of the European Union of Developers and House Builders, Business and Industry Advisory Committee to the OECD (BIAC) and Urban Land Institute. He has graduated with honours from the Law and Administration Department University of Warsaw and completed a post-graduate course in the real estate market and mortgage banking at the same university. He has the receiver’s and real estate agent’s licences.

For 25 years continuously in the market

More than 70,000 m2 assembled facades

The forefront of Polish companies façade

and windows per year

Specialized in the design, design fabrication, supply

Guaranteed high quality services

and installation of light curtain walls, aluminum joinery internal and external including ﬁre doors, skylights and glass ﬁxture spot based on all available systems in the market

Provides TECHNICAL SUPPORT for architects and investors a

Olszankowa 47, 05-120 Legionowo, Poland (48) 22 774-56-96, (48) 22 774-59-23

Culture

POLISH

SHOPPING MARKET

NEEDS MORE

DIVERSIT Y RADOSŁAW KNAP, General Director of the Polish Council of Shopping Centres (PRCH)

ore than 20 new brands appeared on the Polish shopping market in 2016. However, the growing expectations of consumers mean that new brands are likely to continue coming to Poland. An opportunity for this will be the international ReDI fair, to be held at PGE Narodowy Stadium in Warsaw on June

36 polish market

7-8. Organized by the Polish Council of Shopping Centres, the fair will be held for the fourth time. Poland’s more than 11 million square metres of modern retail space in almost 500 shopping centres require great diversity in what is offered to clients. As a result, of key importance for developers is the right choice of tenants. Last year, 22 new brands – offering mostly clothes and accessories – appeared in Poland. The Polish market is ready to accommodate further chains. And there is no shortage of those interested in expanding onto the Polish market. The June ReDI fair in Warsaw will be an opportunity to bring them to Poland. When embarking on a business adventure in Poland new brands very often start with big cities – they open their first outlets in Warsaw, Wrocław or Kraków. In 2016, Forever 21 and Steve Madden opened their first long-awaited stores in Poland. They were joined by Westwing Home & Living, Maxi Bazar, Skechers and the American chain Dunkin’ Donuts. An overwhelming majority of the newcomers represent the fashion and food services sectors. Foreign investors and shopping chains perceive the Polish shopping market as increasingly mature and stable. The growing buying power of the population and the country’s stable economic situation allow them to look into the future with optimism. More new brands, which we will soon be able to see in shopping malls, will be presented at the ReDI fair in June. I can disclose that American chains and chains owned by our eastern neighbours are showing great interest in our mar• ket.

www.bccevents.pl on-site events (The Palace of the Lubomirski Family)

off-site events

BCC Events services include: • managing and assisting at anniversary celebrations, concerts, conferences, fairs, exhibitions, auctions •presentations, business and company meetings, seminars • workshops, staff meetings • public debates

Contact: Management of off-site events: tel. 22 582 61 50 e-mail: aleksander.polanski@bcc.org.pl

Management of on-site events : tel. 22 582 61 30 e-mail: andrzej.swiderski@bcc.org.pl

Hannover Messe

21 SHOPPING CENTRES ARE UNDER CONSTRUCTION IN POLAND, WITH THE TOTAL SIZE OF MORE THAN 70 FOOTBALL PITCHES The Polish Council of Shopping Centres once again presented the results of the PRCH Retail Research Forum report. Shopping centres developers were investing in the largest cities and it is clear that this trend will be maintained. This year, more than 470,000 square metres of modern shopping and entertainment area will hit the market. The biggest projects are being implemented in Warsaw, Cracow, Wrocław, Katowice and Gdańsk.

hroughout 2016, 457,000 square metres of new retail area were put into use, of which 75% was completed in the second half of the year. It was, however, 23% less than in 2015 - according to the PRCH Retail Research Forum report. In 2016, 19 new shopping and entertainment centres with a total area of 367,000 square meters were opened in Poland. 14 retail complexes with a total area of 90,000 sq m were expanded. In 2016, developers’ activity concentrated on the largest and smallest cities. The biggest complex completed last year was the Posnania shopping centre in Poznań with the leasable area of 100,000 sq m, which accounted for over 20% of retail area put into use in 2016. "Both 2016 and 2017 are the years of the return of developers to the largest cities and the construction of large commercial projects. The trend of expansion and modernization of already existing shopping arcades is becoming more and more visible. The trend will be strengthened as centres put into use a dozen or so years ago in very good locations and with a strong position on the market have to adapt to the expectations of the modern client who uses shopping arcades more and more extensively. Shopping arcades are not

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only for shopping but also for services, catering and entertainment, which are becoming increasingly important elements of their activity", says Radosław Knap, General Manager of the Polish Council of Shopping Centres. According to data compiled by experts preparing the PRCH Retail Research Forum report, there are currently over 635,000 sq m under construction, 16% of which is the expansion of existing shopping and entertainment projects. In 2017, over 470,000 sq m of retail area in 21 shopping arcades might be built in the country, more than three fourths of the currently built retail area will be put into use in the largest cities. The largest projects are currently being built in Warsaw (Galeria Młociny), Wrocław (Wroclavia), Gdańsk (Forum), Cracow (Serenada) and Katowice (Galeria Libero). The PRCH Retail Research Forum report is prepared periodically by a group of experts and analysts of the commercial property market from companies that are members of the Polish Council of Shopping Centres. •

Source: Polish Council of Shopping Centres

Infrastructure

NEW DEFINITION OF A STATION An extensive investment programme is underway in the Polish railway. It covers railway lines, rolling stock and railway stations. Some of the buildings are thoroughly modernized, others, like e.g. the new Kraków Główny railway station, were constructed from the ground up. Thanks to investments and a new approach to property management, PKP S.A. redefines the perception of stations. An upgraded or a new facility is expected to attract not only passengers. More and more stations are offering a wide range of commercial services, complementing perfectly the functions related to the travel industry. NOT JUST A STOP

According to the assumptions of PKP S.A., railway stations cease to function only as a place to change trains. Today the train passenger can also be a customer of restaurants, pharmacies, bookstores, and also have the opportunity to interact with culture, among other things, thanks to exhibitions and other events of this type organized at railway stations. In the area of gastronomy services, we will find, among others, fast food restaurants of well-known network brands such as McDonald's, KFC and Burger King, Starbacks at stations. This type of premises can be encountered, i.a. at the railway stations in Warsaw, Wrocław or Cracow. In addition to the popular fast food restaurants, customers have also

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restaurants of more traditional nature or sales points with healthy food at their disposal. However, it is only part of the image of new stations. Such brands as Empik, Matras, RUCH or Relay have also noticed potential in the flow of passengers. Food, books, newspapers, but also grocery shopping. Passengers can today find a very wide range of shops or service premises.

EFFECTS

While making railway station investments PKP S.A., in most cases, consults potential tenants of service areas, still at the stage of designing the facilities. This allowed us to hear and apply the comments of the most interested entities. This unprecedented approach

of the railway appealed to tenants. It can be seen on the example of conducted research and statistics. According to data provided by PKP S.A., the stations in Cracow, Katowice, and Warszawa Zachodnia are 100% leased. A completely rented space seems to look extremely impressive; in Cracow this number makes an impression. Nearly all the space at the stations of Wrocław Główny and Gdynia Główna are rented out. What is important, PKP S.A. emphasizes that they are still open to offer of new tenants. Railway stations have long since ceased to be a place where passengers are waiting only for the train. This opens up a very wide range of opportunities for reaching potential ten• ants.

CENTRAL TRANSPORT HUB A TRANSPORT SOLUTION FOR POLAND'S ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

Infrastructure

Only by combining a Central Airport with a Central Railway Node, highspeed rail arteries and a network of highways will it be possible to meet both business and strategic objectives set by the government – the Warsaw Enterprise Institute (WEI) think-tank experts claim. Officials of the Ministry of Economic Development, Warsaw Chopin Airport and ”Polish Airports” State Enterprise, LOT Polish Airlines, the Polish Development Fund, the Polish Regional Airports Association and the Ronin Club took part in discussions on the WEI's proposals and recommendations. Marcin Haber

n 2016 Polish airports served 34 million people, i.e. four million more than a year earlier. With the growing prosperity of the population, disparities will be diminishing and in 12 years Poland should handle about 60 million passengers. However, the existing infrastructure is not capable of managing the task. In Poland the number of flights per person a year is 0.8 whereas in Germany this ratio is 3.8. Every year it will be more difficult, given that today, at peak times, the most important Chopin Airport in Warsaw works at the limit of its capacity. According to the Warsaw Enterprise Institute experts, who presented a report on the planned Central Transport Hub, Poland is threatened by transport congestion seriously limiting not only the freedom of movement of Poles, but also the economic development of the state. The discussion on the construction and possible location of the hub has been going on for at least 20 years. Despite recent strong political declarations, we have not even made a consistent plan for possible actions. The report is an attempt to approximate the positions, mobilize the parties to take action, but also recommends a number of solutions, both logistic and political ones, that will allow to bypass traditional bumps in the future on the road to carring out strategic investment projects”, explains WEI President Tomasz Wróblewski. In the opinion of WEI, Poland is currently facing two possibilities - the construction of the Central Transport Hub (CPK) or the creation of a duoport on the basis of Warsaw airports. As the authors of the report acknowledge, the latter solution is definitely cheaper and easier to implement, but offering no boost to development. This is due to the limited traffic capacity of the Chopin Airport in Warsaw, which will be exhausted in 4-5 years, and the poor location of the Warsaw Modlin Airport in geographic and infrastructure terms as a possible major airport for Poland. In addition, money will be spent to deepen the spread of Poland's potential in terms of its geographic location, the scale of the aviation market and the pace of its development, while publicly subsidized regional ports will remain

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the bridgeheads of foreign companies competing with the national carrier. The over-invested regional ports, built up until now by local governments without a government strategy, have become hostages to foreign airlines. The oversupply of ports cannibalizing themselves and desperately fighting among each other for carriers providing passenger traffic, has resulted in the situation in which they have begun offering low-cost airlines financial support in return for providing connections on their tarmac. These were the costs incurred not only by themselves, but also directly and immediately by local governments”, says Mariusz Szpikowski, director of the "Polish Airports" State Enterprise. As an alternative, the Warsaw Enterprise Institute proposes the creation of the Central Transport Hub, which would act as an air hub, a central passenger and freight hub of the country's railway transport and the Warsaw-Łódź megapolis keystone. Over an area of more than 10 square kilometers there would be built an intercontinental airport capable of serving as a hub for the largest airlines in the world, including, above all, the hub for the LOT Polish Airlines. The key element of the hub would be the passenger-freight Central Railway Node connecting Asia to Europe. An access road to the airport and the central railway node will be assured, among others, by the A2 motorway and the railway - including the section of Warsaw – Łódź high-speed lines. The Warsaw Enterprise Institute project also assumes the construction of a railway system linking the hub to the cargo network, enabling quick access to the largest shopping centres in Poland and Central Europe, with Prague or Berlin at the top of them. Among the recommendations included in the WEI report there is the earliest possible development of a longterm National Development Strategy that takes into account the interests of our allies, but also balances long-term economic interests of Poland. In the experts’ opinion, an in-depth analysis and a nation-wide strategy for local airport networks, both in the context of the ambitious Central Transport Hub project and in the context of Poland's • overall transport policy, are also needed.

Infrastructure

THE NEW LOGISTICS SOLUTION TRANSFERS THE ENTIRE DISTRIBUTION DIRECTLY TO GDANSK ŁUKASZ GREINKE, President of the Board Managing Director of the Port of Gdansk Authority SA (PGA SA), talks to "Polish Market".

The Port of Gdansk Authority has signed a 3-year contract with the Renault-Nissan Alliance. Based on this agreement, Gdansk will become a hub from which cars will be distributed to the markets of Central and Eastern Europe. Could you let us in on the details of the contract? How did you establish the cooperation, and are there any other manufacturers you have concluded similar agreements with? This is not the only large contract we managed to finalise this year. Since 5 January, vessels of the KESS company regularly call at the port once a week to pick up Hyundai cars from Gdansk. The cars are manufactured in a Czech factory in Nosovice. They are transported by trucks and trains to Gdansk, from where they are further transported by sea to the British port of Tilbury. The estimated annual volume of cars exported from Gdansk will amount to about 50,000 cars this year. Three months later – in early April – another contract came into operation at the Port of Gdansk, this time concerning Nissan cars. This is a typical import contract, which completely changed the previous logistics path of Nissan’s distribution within East-Central Europe. To date, Nissan’s cars were transported via the Port of Gdansk to Lithuania, Latvia, Ukraine, and 40% of Nissan Motor Manufacturing United Kingdom’s output went to the Polish market. The remaining part of the volume for Poland came from Amsterdam, from where it was brought to a central storage yard near Lodz. For Czech and Slovak customers, the cars were transported via Amsterdam to the Czech Republic, from where they were further distributed to Czech and Slovak dealers. It was similar in the case of Hungary, although here, the cars were previously delivered to a storage yard located in Austria. PM

The new logistics solution transfers the entire distribution directly to Gdansk. Location and price are our main competitive advantages. A growing part of the market is slowly starting to appreciate this. We estimate that this year alone about 100,000 cars will be handled at our port. If this happens, it will mean a nearly sevenfold increase in this type of transshipment at the port within a 12 month period. For this reason, the Port of Gdansk Authority has decided to speed up the construction of a completely new quay intended mainly for handling cars, although not only. It will be an over 900-metre long, deepwater quay at the Outer Port, along with the necessary, accompanying infrastructure. Thanks to the construction, which is to begin this year, the attractiveness of Gdansk’s port for the automotive sector will increase considerably. Soon, a new container alliance will begin to call at Gdansk’s port. On what routes will it operate and how will it increase the Port of Gdansk’s share in container traffic? Indeed, we will soon welcome a new container alliance in Gdansk, made up of four huge shipowner companies: Cosco Shipping, Evergreen, OOCL, and CMA CGM. For now, we do not want to disclose too many details, but I can say that the shipowners will strive to make the Port of Gdansk one of the leading European ports on the route from Asia. For Gdansk, this will mean a large volume of goods coming directly from the Asian continent. This will undoubtedly enhance our position as a distribution hub for East-Central Europe in terms of containers. After 3 months of this year, we have already observed a 7% increase in container volume in Gdansk compared to the 1st quarter of last year, which was PM

a record year by the way. It will definitely increase our share in the container market in Poland. Last year, it was 64%. It is still hard to say what the situation is going to be this year. We estimate, however, that the number of containers handled at the port will exceed last year’s figure of 1.3 million TEU. You are also opening up to new directions. The United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia are currently among those mentioned. Why the interest in these directions, and what will be transported to these markets? A regular link with the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia has been successfully operating at the Port of Gdansk since June last year. The shipowner calls at the port at least once a month and picks up mainly railway tank wagons. This is the effect of a several-year contract signed by one of the leading Polish manufacturers of railway rolling stock with a Saudi railway operator. At the port, the contract is handled by Port Gdanski Eksploatacja SA, a subsidiary of the PGA SA Group. Actually, the Middle East is not the only region interested in Polish products. At the beginning of this year, the Port of Gdansk Authority signed an agreement for registration of a regular shipping service with one of the general cargo shipping companies for transport on the Gdansk – USA route. As a result, beautiful luxury motor yachts can often be observed in Gdansk – they are the products of Polish shipyards which are loaded onto the ship and transported to the United States by sea. The Port of Gdansk keeps changing. We strive to achieve the best European service standards, while maintaining competitive prices. Along with the intensively modernised and expanded infrastructure and fantastic location, this attitude determines our course towards • success. PM

5-6/2017 polish market

Infrastructure

PROMOTING ENVIRONMENTFRIENDLY AND MODERN TRANSPORT Over the last year the number of passengers using the services of the municipal transport company (MPK) in Rzeszów, south-eastern Poland, has risen as much as 10%. This is the result of the investment project carried out by the city to persuade the residents that public transport is fast and comfortable.

he construction of a system integrating the public transport of Rzeszów and the surrounding areas was a programme worth PLN415 million. The city received more than PLN311 million in European Union funding for the project. Its strategic goal was improving municipal transport in Rzeszów. The project consisted of three parts: the extension of the transport network, purchase of modern and comfortable buses, and the development of an Intelligent Transport System for the city. In the first part of the project, the city’s main transport arteries were extended. Additionally, many intersections and terminuses were modified, and bus lanes were introduced. Bus shelters are being replaced and some of them are air conditioned – they are cooled in summer and heated in winter. In the second part of the project, Rzeszów bought 80 modern and comfortable buses. At present, the city has a fleet of 180 vehicles to operate 55 bus lines, transporting around 100,000 passengers a day. Half of the vehicles run on CNG gas. The average age of the buses is 10 years. There are plans to buy 50 more

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new buses by the end of the year, including 10 electric vehicles. Each vehicle is equipped with a computer installed in the driver’s cab and a mobile ticket machine, which enables the purchase of tickets in a simple and intuitive way. The passenger can pay in cash or with a payments card. The buses are equipped with an onboard system providing next-stop voice announcements and an external announcements system useful for visually impaired people. An audio-visual surveillance system is installed in each of the 80 buses. Within its range is the whole passenger area inside the bus and space immediately in front of and behind the bus. The third part of the project involved, among others, the establishment of the Public Transport Management Centre at the Municipal Transport Board (ZTM). The Centre’s mission is supervising, on a current basis, how the MPK performs its tasks as a municipal transport company. The Centre is equipped with a large display with a map of the city showing the locations of MPK buses. Thanks to GPS positioning, the staff are able to track

every vehicle in the fleet. They can communicate with the drivers using VoIP and short text messages which the driver can see on the display of the on-board computer. The Centre also enables watching real-time views from cameras installed on the buses. The new vehicles are also equipped with an electronic passenger counting system for the careful monitoring of passenger flows. At every bus stop the system collects data on the number of passengers who have got into and out of the vehicle, and the number of passengers inside the vehicle. If a road is blocked and it is necessary to arrange detours the Centre’s staff can quickly change routes for individual buses. Information on the change of the route will be displayed on the bus and on travel information boards at bus stops. Passengers with Internet access can find out about delayed buses through the online service einfo.erzeszów.pl and the mobile app MyBus. They present bus schedules and information about delays, the location of the delayed bus and the expected time of its arriv• al at a specific bus stop.

Infrastructure

ELECTRIC MOBILITY AS AN ANSWER TO THE PROBLEM OF ENERGY STORAGE

ARE THERE OTHER IDEAS ON HOW TO REDUCE VARIATIONS IN DAILY ENERGY CONSUMPTION? HERBERT LEOPOLD GABRYŚ, CHAIRMAN OF THE COMMITTEE FOR ENERGY AND CLIMATE POLICY POLISH CHAMBER OF COMMERCE The philosophy of ensuring the security of energy supplies for the country, as it is understood today, requires searching for a multitude of solutions. One of them, for example, is reducing variations in periodic and daily energy consumption. But is it only, or above all, the problem of energy storage? Let us look at this from a bit broader perspective. The dependence of the European Union on external supplies of oil and gas is a major challenge, given the present geopolitical turmoil, which has affected not only distant countries. And this challenge will become even more serious due to the process of eliminating the EU’s own resources of solid fuels. We have enough reserves of solid fuels - brown coal reserves will last for over three hundred years and of black coal for many decades. The problem of electricity for transport - electric mobility in a broad sense - is for Poland not the question of “if”, but of what fuels and generation technologies will be used. As for electric mobility, one should point to its dual role. The first aspect is a reduction in harmful emissions in transport. The second one is the potential to accumulate energy when it is produced in excess in an unstable generation process. It should be stressed that the make-up of fuels used in Poland in electricity generation differs markedly from the rest of Europe. The country's energy security strategy assumes a significant development of renewable energy sources, but

with black and brown coal remaining the basis for power generation. Electric mobility in Poland will depend on the costs of the EU’s climate and energy policy. This policy is consistently aimed at decarbonizing the EU economies by the end of the century. It is clearly related to the climate agreement of December 2015, adopted at the COP 21 conference and already ratified. It is obviously one of the most crucial economic challenges for us, in particular for the power industry. The cost of introducing the climate agreement will include the price of electricity for the widely understood electric mobility. I think it is worth concentrating on transport in densely urbanized areas. The result would be less noise and healthier air that we breathe in every day. What is not without significance for the development of renewable energy, mainly wind and solar power, is the potential to accumulate it at times of lower consumption – for example, by charging batteries at night. Systemic solutions involving the power industry and transport are necessary to achieve this. What is needed is many detailed solutions - not only in the form of unified connections and parameters of electricity itself, but also in terms of prices and subsidizing the programme. Otherwise, no success is possible. Local governments have a major role to play here. It will not be cheap - not only because electricity prices are significantly higher, but also 5-6/2017 polish market

Infrastructure due to the cost of participating in infrastructure construction. This will not be “small” money! Today the cost is probably underestimated because it is not possible to take account of all the details at this stage of the programme. The scale of the necessary work is reflected in the set of changes proposed to the rules of functioning of the fuel market in transport, the list of proposed support instruments, changes in tax instruments and technical regulations. Whether the choice of measures is right for achieving the set objectives may be judged after reading the proposals for detailed solutions. This relates both to the signalled legislative changes and judgements on the efficiency of the assets employed, in particular financial ones. Let us add that without major support from the budgets of local governments - if they are to be responsible for the programme - it is impossible to talk about its effective implementation. Here I find no credible suggestions, neither regarding the scale of the means necessary for the signalled intentions nor regarding the sources of their acquisition. A lot could be said about electric mobility itself. If Poland succeeds in pursuing its own way to achieve the common climate goals set by EU policies - based on electricity production with the use of its own potential for the development of renewable energy sources and its own coal reserves - then we have a chance to excellently exploit the strategy of electric mobility in urban transport. It is worth mentioning the concept of Poland’s doctrinal energy security solutions. In the judgment of the Polish Chamber of Commerce, the political will has not been fully defined yet and the result is that many remarks concerning Poland’s energy security strategy are formulated depending on the audience and their expectations. Because of this, the opinions are divergent and do not give answers concerning the fundamental decisions in this area. This also applies to unstable electricity generation - primarily from renewable energy sources. Here is the answer to the fundamental question - how to broaden the area of energy storage technologies. If one accepts the four pillars of Poland’s energy security as sufficient and logical for the Polish power industry:

PILLAR I – ENERGY SOVEREIGNTY PRIMARY ENERGY AND ITS RESOURCES

- Important here is the ratio of consumption from the country’s own resources and imports, and recognition, protection, sharing and exploitation with the principle of preserving the ownership of energy resources and the primacy of energy resources protection over other ways of development. - Introducing a measure of energy dependence on external supplies for primary energy as no more than 50% of total consumption in the country. And for electricity within the European energy market - introducing a measure of the EU countries’ energy security and energy independence in the form of a ratio of the utilization of internal energy reserves.

PILLAR II - SECURITY OF ENERGY SUPPLIES SYSTEM AND ENERGY PRODUCTION

- Here, we have the principle that the most important aspect of an integrated energy system is the central role of the energy

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user and the efficient and flexible production of electricity and heat primarily on the basis of the country’s own reserves, with the rule of supporting innovative technologies including those involving renewable energy sources, cogeneration under market criteria, with the sustainable development of distributed generation and clearly defined responsibility for energy security and the continuity of supplies.

PILLAR III

– COMPETITIVENESS AND ENERGY EFFICIENCY ECONOMY AND NEW TECHNOLOGIES - It is about stimulating a rise in the energy efficiency of the economy, including the use of cogeneration effects and the maintenance of technological neutrality of production under market conditions, in order for consumers to achieve multidimensional energy comfort.

PILLAR IV

– REDUCING THE IMPACT OF THE ECONOMY ON THE ENVIRONMENT AND CLIMATE CLEAN AIR AND ENVIRONMENT-FRIENDLY POWER INDUSTRY - Here, we have the rule of environment-friendly economy and energy-efficient urban areas, limiting the impact of the economy on the natural environment in keeping with the logic of sustainable development, with the implementation of mechanisms for the use of waste energy and the closedloop economy for fuels and by-products. - then it would be right to note that from each of these remarks one can conclude there is a need for prompt changes to how we understand the role of power engineering, also because of the necessity to reduce variations in the periodic and daily energy consumption. It is time to make the effort to show that what is still not exploited in balancing electricity consumption and production is electric storage heating by potential groups of consumers who have no access to district heating (from broadly understood cogeneration) or other heat sources which do not produce emissions from low chimneys. New houses and new housing estates built in technologies with high energy standards are still a vision of the future. It is necessary to offer acceptable electricity tariffs for electric storage heating to owners of old houses and those for whom the visions of zero-energy buildings are inaccessible. We know many positive examples from the recent past and their “beneficial” impact on emissions from low chimneys. Therefore, if we speak about stabilizing renewable electricity generation, then electric storage heating can excellently supplement many visions. The consumer is interested in heat, and if it is accumulated in floors or stoves, then space heating using off-peak electricity surpluses is possible at any time of the day. In this sense, it can not only stabilize the power system’s work, but also be easily accessible to those for whom other carriers are inaccessible or too expensive. When will it be possible? It will be possible when the prices are affordable. At the same time electric storage heating may contribute to the energy security of the country based on its own resources. It is worth remembering about this factor when designing the special tariff. •

25 EUROPOWER CONFERENCE POWER INDUSTRY AND THE MORAWIECKI PLAN

Infrastructure

The 25th EuroPower conference held in Warsaw at the beginning of April was another forum where public officials, business people and scientists discussed the present state of the power industry in Poland, plans for its development, difficulties and chances. The programme of the conference was based on the slogan “Society, Power Industry, Economy.” The goal was to examine current energy industry developments regarding these three areas.

he panel discussion which opened the conference focused on chances for the development of the power sector in the context of the Strategy for Responsible Development, called the Morawiecki Plan. Among the topics discussed were the strategy’s priorities regarding the power industry. The participants included deputy Minister of Energy Andrzej Piotrowski, Chairman of the Advisory Board of EuroPower Leszek Juchniewicz, Prof. Waldemar Kamrat of the Gdańsk University of Technology, President of Tauron Polska Energia Filip Grzegorczyk, CEO of GE Poland and the Baltics Beata Stelmach and Board Member of Microsoft Dariusz Piotrowski.

Photo: Deputy Minister of Energy Andrzej Piotrowski

In his opening remarks, deputy Minister Piotrowski said: “The Strategy for Responsible Development is solely a pointer provided by the government which gives food for thought. The strategy mapped out by the government can only serve as a signpost which business entities should follow, and which should also serve as a guideline for citizens.” Leszek Grzegorczyk, President of Tauron, a company owned by the Treasury, commented on these remarks as power engineering projects contained

in the Morawiecki Plan have a direct impact on the company’s activities: “Each grand plan, especially of a breakthrough nature, is bound to breed controversy. The Strategy for Responsible Development breaks some deeply rooted paradigms. Europe has long been divided into the industrialized West and the agricultural East. Through starting a re-industrialization trend, the Morawiecki Plan seems to overcome this pervasive division. It is also important that we have made a move from an economic doctrine of the past 25 years to realistic economic thinking.” GE CEO Beata Stelmach referred to concern raised during the conference that the implementation of Morawiecki Plan provisions could lead to the marginalization of foreign companies present on the Polish market. “To forestall a question - no, GE has no intention to withdraw from Poland, all the more so that this year is very special for us. We are celebrating the 25th anniversary of our presence in Poland. This period of time has shown that investing in Poland was a good idea. Today we are taking part in the implementation of the strategy known as the Morawiecki Plan because we operate a very broad portfolio of activities. We have factories, laboratories, we are involved in the aviation, energy and medical sectors. We are a Polish entity. We offer employment to some 7,000 people. Nearly 100% of them work under contracts of employment. We pay taxes in Poland. We feel we are part of the Polish economy.” The GE CEO noted, however, that any marginalization of and discrimination against foreign companies could force them to pull out of Poland, because their business operations would no longer bring profit. Dariusz Piotrowski, Board Member of Microsoft, another global player active in Poland for a long time, also addressed the earlier voiced point whether foreign companies are facing discrimination in this country: “Last year, just like GE, we marked

the 25th anniversary of our presence in Poland. We are not aware of any negative side-effects of current changes, or discrimination. The difference between us and CEO Beata Stelmach’s company may be that Microsoft sells its products in Poland through partners who are 95% owned by Polish capital. Between them, they form a network which employs some 20,000 workers, who are not just involved in sales, but also take part in building our services and their development. After all, technology has no nationality. When it comes to the Industry 4.0 trend, we are taking a global approach. We create solutions connected with this trend at our R&D centres all over the world. Polish specialists perfectly function within this system. The capabilities of Polish programmers are appreciated the world over.” Addressing global business representatives, deputy Minister Andrzej Piotrowski said: “A company is a Polish one not because of where its capital comes from, or where its roots are, but because it understands Polish risk categories. We can say that through its experience in Poland, GE is guided by a completely different set of considerations in making decisions than a company which is only starting investing in Poland from scratch and whose decisions are influenced by newspaper articles [about Poland ed.]. The re-Polonization trend should be understood in this context. We are looking for investors who are in touch with the realities of the Polish economy.” The discussion thus demonstrated that the public administration, Treasury-owned companies and private business appear to have found common ground. It seems that the current dialogue regarding the Strategy for Responsible Development will thus be possible if the partners involved continue to find pragmatic solutions, and the administration takes into account the point of view of companies who have long invested in Poland. • 5-6/2017 polish market

Culture

INNOVATIONS FIRST AND FOREMOST

Financial technologies (FinTech), new technologies in energy industry and health care, modern management systems in enterprises and practical application of innovative solutions in business were discussed in Tarnów during the 10th Investment Forum which took place on 24th and 25th April. The Forum was held under the slogan "People –Technologies – Management". Photo. Plenary session “Innovation in Market Economy – How to Achieve This? Pictured: Roman Ciepiela, Mayor of Tarnów; Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz, President of the Polish People’s Party (PSL); Prof. Grzegorz W. Kołodko, Kozminski University; Jacek Krupa, Marshal of Małopolskie Province; Tim Patterson, President, Fuel Economy Solution Limited, United Kingdom.

The conference was attended by 400 guests from over a dozen countries of Europe and Asia – representatives of the world of business, politics and science, startup founders, representatives of the largest consulting companies, of the IT sector and industrial concerns. Within the jubilee Forum there were several dozen events - thematic blocks, discussion panels, lectures, presentations and reports. Traditionally, the Investment Forum also became a place where startup founders were given the opportunity to present their innovative idea to investors and representatives of large Polish and foreign businesses, so as to acquire funds for the development of their project and to find an investor for its implementation. During the 10th Investment Forum 70 startups were presented. They represented the most diverse industries, from FinTech and medical applications, through robotics, to storage systems. Chairman of the Economic Forum Programme Council Zygmunt Berdychowski, the organizer of the Forum in Tarnów, pointed out that this year's event was a record one. "This year our startup contest is attended by 112 innovative companies, it is 100% more in comparison to last year", he said. "I am glad that it is already the 10th Investment Forum which takes place in Tarnów. I wish that more and more small and medium-sized companies would like to start here from one year to another. I wish them to become big companies counting in Europe and in the world too”, Paweł Szefernaker, Secretary of State at the Chancellery of the Prime Minister

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said during the Forum. He pointed out that our country has potential in the area of innovation. ”We have more and more startups, esteemed programmers, better and better laboratory facilities at universities, and dedicated development programmes", he emphasized. Adam Czyżewski, Chief Economist of PKN ORLEN, stated that in order to gain an advantage in the fuel&energy industry, the conern is increasingly investing in technologies and has created a platform through which startups can submit their ideas. Creating such platforms can help startups get in touch with corporations. According to Wojciech Blewa, Director of Innovation and Development of Lotos Group, a startup from the very beginning imposes the risk of failure and the companies representing the State Treasury are primarily settled for failures. Therefore, it is important that the cooperation of these two entities is well described from the very beginning. Secretary of State at the Ministry of Digital Affairs Marek Zagórski pointed out that the FinTech sector is one of the key elements of responsible development. What needs to be continued is the necessity of the amendment of the act on innovation, running good regulatory policy - which will be the biggest challenge. Tim Patterson, President of Fuel Economy Solution Ltd. from the United Kingdom, was talking, among others, about plans of legal protection of innovative companies from big corporations in the UK. "The role of the state is not only to support the innovative market economy but, above all, to care for citizens who want to be not

only prosperous but also healthy. This is, in a broader sense, also an example of innovative thinking on a macro scale”, he stated. During the Forum the "General Data Protection Regulation" (RODO) was also discussed. Maciej Kawecki, Advisor to the Minister in the Political Cabinet of the Ministry of Digital Affairs, stressed that the reform of personal data protection is the biggest legislative change that is to take place this year. The biggest changes that the RODO is to bring are financial penalties of up to EUR 20 million for entities violating the Regulation. One of the examples of implementing innovative solutions is the electromobility industry. Paweł Śliwa, Vice-President of the PGE's Management Board for Innovation, pointed out that our energy industry is prepared to charge electric cars. In his view, to stimulate electromobility, a whole system should be created, starting from parking spaces and bus lanes, to facilitating traffic in the strict city centres. The first day of the 10th Investment Forum in Tarnów crowned the The Investor of the Year and Investment of the Year Solemn Gala Award Ceremony. The Investment of the Year Award was given to Ardigen S.A. The Investor of the Year Award went to Work Service S.A. On the second day of the conference we met the laureates of the the Startup Award 2017 Competition. The main prize (PLN 50 thousand) - SiDLY Care. The second prize (PLN 30 thousand) - PelviFly. The third prize (PLN 20 thousand) - FeetSafety. In turn, the submarine robot Wiatka won the ROBOT SHOW – Build Your Robot Competition. •

International Relations

VISIT OF PRESIDENT ANDRZEJ DUDA TO MEXICO The Presidential Couple, ANDRZEJ DUDA and AGATA KORNHAUSER-DUDA, started a three-day visit to Mexico from visiting the Pallottine parish run by Polish priests in Tenango del Aire on 23 April. On the first day there was also the ceremony of awarding state distinctions to members of the Polish community in Mexico at the Embassy of the Republic of Poland. On April 24 the Polish President met with Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto and the mayor of Mexico City. Then, he took part in the conclusion of the Polish-Mexican Economic Forum.

We can proudly say that Poles have been contributing to the culture of Mexico for years," President Andrzej Duda said at the Embassy of the Republic of Poland during the meeting with the Polish community in Mexico City, where he awarded persons who had rendered great services to the community. The President honoured singer Leszek Zawadka with the Knight's Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta "for outstanding services to Polish culture, for his achievements in artistic and creative work, for his activities for the Polish community in Mexico". Marek Adamski, Luis Decelis Maciak, Hanna Kot-Arredondo, Józef Olechowski, Andrzej Rattinger-Aranda and Priest Wiesław Skowroński were honoured with the Knight's Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland "for outstanding services in popularizing Polish culture and history, for their activities for the Polish community in Mexico”. During the meeting at the embassy the forthcoming 226th anniversary of the adoption of the Constitution of 3rd May was celebrated. The President recalled the words of Mexican Nobel Prize winner Octavio Paz that "Poland is great neither with its territory nor its population but with its history". A group of Polish entrepreneurs, representatives of ministries, of the Polish Investment and Trade Agency (PAIH) and Bank Gospodarstwa Krajowego (BGK) came with the President to Mexico. Several bilateral agreements were signed, among others the ones on mutual economic cooperation, on supporting mutual investments, on mutual financing of investments, on cooperation of BGK and PAIH with their Mexican counterparts, including the ones between the Polish Ministry of Economic Development and Finance and the Ministry of Economy of Mexico, the Polish Space Agency and the Mexican Space Agency, the Polish Investment and Trade Agency and the Mexican ProMexico Investment Promotion Agency.

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President Andrzej Duda in Mexico City welcomed by Senate President Pablo Escudero Morales The President began the last day of his visit to Mexico with the official opening of the Foreign Trade Office of the Polish Investment and Trade Agency in Mexico. This is the first branch of the Agency in Latin America. Present at the opening ceremony were, apart from the President, Deputy Minister of Economic Development Jerzy Kwieciński, Deputy Minister of Foreign Trade of the Ministry of Economy of Mexico Juan Carlos Baker Pineda and representatives of the PAIH Management Board, Krzysztof Senger and Wojciech Fedko. The Trade Office of the Polish Investment and Trade Agency in Mexico is the eighth foreign branch of the Agency and the first of its kind inaugurated by the Polish President. This demonstrates the great importance of Mexico and also all of Latin America in the strategy for developing Polish exports and investments. "I would like to thank you warmly for the invitation to the opening of another representative office of the Polish Investment and Trade Agency outside the Republic of Poland. This is basically the beginning of an extremely ambitious programme of Poland's global economic expansion, which has been undertaken by the Polish government and with which I co-operate as President of the Republic of Poland”, Andrzej Duda said at the ceremony.

The data from the Ministry of Economic Development show that Polish business is beginning to notice the potential of Mexico as the leader of Latin America. In the first two months of alone 2017 Polish goods exports to Mexico increased by 50%, reaching the level of USD 94.22 million. For companies from Poland Mexico is also an attractive supplier. This country is a giant in the production and distribution of tomatoes, avocados, tropical fruit and beer. The open door policy adopted by Mexico is fuelling the economic revival. It has free trade agreements signed with forty partners around the world, including the European Union. It is also among the top ten most attractive countries for investment, specializing in automotive production, mobile telephony and the IT sector. The authorities of the state are successively developing the programme of special economic zones. "The opportunities for cooperation are impressive, so the Office in Mexico is being established at the very beginning of the implementation of the new policy to support the foreign expansion of Polish companies", said Krzysztof Senger, addressing the Polish entrepreneurs, beginning the B2B session with Mexican companies. "I am delighted to be able to participate, as President, in this great event, which is the

International Relations serious start of serious economic cooperation between Poland and the United Mexican States”, the President also stressed. "Because we assume that this visit and the event we are participating in right now, will give these relations a new impetus not only for the nearest years, but I hope that for decades”, Andrzej Duda said. From 25 April, both the companies, which were taken on the business mission to Mexico by PAIH, and other Polish entrepreneurs interested in Mexico can count on the specific assistance of the employees of the Trade Office of the Polish Investment and Trade Agency in Mexico City located in the tallest building in Latin America, Torre Mayor. The Office is to provide information on the basic legal regulations of the Mexican market, search for potential business partners, organize business missions, meetings and trainings and explore opportunities for intensifying business collaboration, services and products emerging in connection with trade fairs and demand. The tasks of its employees will also involve the support of Polish business in developing strategies and a financing model for Polish projects. The Mexican PAIH Office will be the first contact for local entrepreneurs interested in entering the Polish market as a foreign investor. "The task of the Foreign Trade Offices is to effectively manage the bilateral exchange of economic information, thereby reducing the business risk for Polish companies”, Wojciech Fedko, PAIH’s Vice-President responsible for the development of the Foreign Trade Office programme, said. Wojciech Fedko explained that the Offices’ task was to support Polish entrepreneurs from the SME sector to successfully enter new, rapidly growing world markets for the implementation of the programme of the internationalization of Polish business. "We will be working together with entrepreneurs on the proper positioning of Polish products and services with particular emphasis on investments," the deputy head of the Agency added. As part of the mission, PAIH also organized the Mexican-Polish Economic Forum with the participation of President Duda and companies from both countries. During the visit, bilateral agreements were signed, including a declaration on mutual cooperation between the Minister of Economy of the United Mexican States and the Minister of Economic Development and Finance of the Republic of Poland. "In the document we emphasize that economic cooperation based on the development of direct contacts, especially between entrepreneurs and local business organizations, contributes to the growth of bilateral trade and investment," Deputy Minister of Economic Development Jerzy Kwieciński, who signed the declaration on behalf of Deputy Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, said. "That is why the High Level Working Group on Economic Affairs will be established, whose regular consultations will

President Andrzej Duda honoured singer Leszek Zawadka with the Knight's Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta

President Andrzej Duda at a ceremonial session of the country's Senate take place in Mexico City and Warsaw," the deputy minister said. Agreements between the Polish Investment and Trade Agency and the Mexican ProMexico Investment Promotion Agency, and between the Polish Space Agency and the Mexican Space Agency were also signed. "I am convinced that the agreement on economic cooperation between Poland and Mexico signed today will contribute to an increase of trade and investment between our countries as will the PAIH Foreign Trade Office located in the strict business centre of Mexico City with professional services, which will be used by all entrepreneurs interested in entering the Mexican market," Deputy Minister of Economic Development Jerzy Kwieciński said at the conclusion of the Economic Forum. President Andrzej Duda was also invited to the Mexican Senate. The Polish President was welcomed by President of the Senate Pablo Escudero Morales. Then, Andrzej

Duda met with the presidium of this chamber. A later speech during the solemn session of the Senate completed a three-day visit of the Presidential Couple to Mexico. "Poland wants a world built on cooperation and security; I am convinced that Mexico is an important partner for us in the construction of such a world," President Andrzej Duda said at the session. He emphasized that dynamic international historical changes are taking place in the international system. "A new geopolitical division is being formed before our very eyes. Experts dealing with international relations are talking about the possibility of recreating the influence spheres of the great powers. Poland is not an advocate of such a world," he said. ”Polish foreign policy tries to implement, protect and promote three values: solidarity, community and peace through law," the President emphasized. • 5-6/2017 polish market

International Relations

MEXICO - ONE OF THE FIVE NON-EUROPEAN PRIORITY MARKETS FOR POLISH ECONOMY ALEJANDRO NEGRÍN MUÑOZ, Ambassador of Mexico in Poland, talks to Marcin Haber. the Children of Santa Rosa – named after the place where they were hosted. Mexicans see Poland as a country that faced tremendous challenges and we believe that many Polish cities, rebuilt after the war, are worth to be called UNESCO heritage sites. On the other hand, we have the visits of Pope John Paul II to Mexico. Mexico was one of the most visited countries by the Polish pope who loved our country. During his five visits he was always interested in the Mexican identity. He recognized many parallels between Poland and Mexico, not only in the religion itself, but also had great understanding of the profundity of our cultures. Historic aspects, the economic success of Poland, heroic nature of Polish history and the visits of John Paul II are parts of the image that we, Mexicans, have of Poland. We are here, a few days before an official visit of the President of Poland in Mexico. What can we expect from the visit? It is an extraordinarily important visit for Mexico. It is also the first visit of a Polish President to our country. Poland and Mexico are in the process of building a strategic partnership. The visit has a very important economic aspect. Several economic agreements are to be signed. Just to list a few of them: an agreement between the Ministries of Economy, agreement between investment and trade agencies, agreement between foreign trade banks and agreement between chambers of comemerce of both sides. What is very significant too, a representative office of the Polish Investment and Trade Agency (PAIH) is to be opened in Mexico. PM

Let me ask you one general question what do the Mexicans know about Poland and Polish people? When looking at Poland, there are two basic aspects that we are thinking of. Firstly, Poland is known as a country that after its integration with the EU has achieved a tremendous economic success, a country that has transformed its education system, a country of people with an exceptionally high level PM

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of education, and a country with long-term economic stability. That is well known in Mexico. The other aspect is a historical one. And in this case, I would like to mention two things. Poland is perceived as an absolutely heroic country that was invaded in World War II and almost completely destroyed. By the way, some Polish refugees were in Mexico during that time. We received a group of Polish children in 1943. They are known as

International Relations This is going to reinforce trade between Poland and Mexico that has been growing in an exponential way over the last decade. There is a flow of Mexican investments to Poland, and the other way around. There is a flow of Polish tourists to Mexico. And finally, the Polish government is supporting negotiations between Mexico and the European Union on renewing their Free Trade Agreement, with the expectation that this new framework would create conditions for the strengthening of Mexico’s relations with its non-traditional partners in Europe. President Andrzej Duda’s visit to Mexico will include a trade mission of Polish companies. What companies are the most welcomed in Mexico? Mexico and Poland are countries that enjoy enormous mutual sympathy. This is reflected in our economic relations. Mexican investors in Poland say that, despite the country’s difficult language, there is a cultural atmosphere positive for Mexico, just to name Cemex or Katcon, as some examples of Mexican companies in Poland. It is quite the same in the case of Polish companies in Mexico, such as Bury Technologies or Maflow. As far as trade is concered, there is a very important component, which is the automotive industry. Mexican companies operating in this sector sell products to Poland, but also the Polish automotive companies which have invested in Mexico sell their products on the Mexican market. Besides, some of the Polish food products are present in Mexico. And there are more to come in the fields of the already mentioned automotive industry, aerospace industry, as well as the electric and energy sectors and cosmetics industry. PM

What specific Mexican products can we find in Poland? Right now, there is a food fair in Warsaw. A group of Mexican companies have come here. Some of them already have presence in the Polish market, there is a wide range of fresh products like lemons, avocados (which by the way are the best in the world because these fruits are of Mexican origin), chili pepper, coffee and tropical fruits and very well recognized Tequila. I can give you an example for Polish products as well. Mexico is the most important market in Latin America for Polish vodka. It is not a new trend. It is not well known that Wyborowa (one of the Polish vodka brands - ed.) decided to open a plant in Mexico in the 1970s when there was a high demand for vodka in Mexico. The market pattern decided that the Mexicans preferred the vodka imported from Poland to the Polish vodka produced in Mexico. Today, if you ask people in this sector, they will tell you that Mexico is the most important market for them. Our trade has of course many other elements. PM

You have mentioned Poland as one of the developing EU countries. Should the visit of President Andrzej Duda be seen as a clear political sign, or do you see it only as an economic mission? Basically, the framework of economic relations between Mexico and the 28 countries of the European Union is in the context of the agreement that Mexico has with the EU, and which now is in the process of renegotiation to modernize it. The first point is that Poland is supporting that process of negotiation. The agreements that we are going to sign are oriented at different objectives. The first objective is to

guarantee that the Ministries of Economy of both countries have a permanent, constant dialogue, which is highly important for our economic relations. The second one is to create conditions so that our small and medium companies could be incorporated into the flow of our commercial relations. This means that banks that guarantee exports in both countries will sign relevant agreements. The most important, global companies have some needs, but small and medium companies need a structure of support. And finally, the organized business sectors of both countries are quite interested in having a better net to work together. We believe that this visit will create a very good structure for the growth of trade, investment and tourism between our countries. Last year, Mexico was declared by the Polish Ministry of Economic Development as one of the five non-European priority markets for the Polish economy. That is one of the most important elements of the background for the visit of President Duda in Mexico. Let me specify a few things that are very important for us. This year is absolutely ground-breaking for relations between Poland and Mexico. As I said earlier, there will be the first ever visit by a Polish president to Mexico. In Poznań we will have an exhibition of Frida Kahlo, a legendary Mexican painter well known across the world. Taking this exhibit as a basis, we will organize many activities to reinforce the presence of Mexico in Poland. The exhibition will be accompanied by a wide cultural programme that will present the passionate life and work of the Mexican artist Frida Kahlo, as well as her relationship with the painter Diego Rivera and their intense participation in political and social life in postrevolutionary Mexico. The purpose of this programme is to give a national projection to the first exhibition of Kahlo’s work in Poland. We hope to attract the public by the accompanying activities like film festivals, conferences, lectures and gastronomic events. But next year is going to be a special year as well. 2018 marks the 90th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between our countries. Are there any plans for some special events or celebration of this anniversary? That is another moment absolutely crucial in our history. We will celebrate the 90th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations. We are in a dialogue with the Polish government. We will organize special events for that occasion. In 2018 in collaboration with the Adam Mickiewicz Institute and the Poster Museum at Wilanów, we will present a virtual exhibition of the best Polish posters about Mexico. Also, we are in talks to develop further projects around cinema, opera, gastronomy and murals for next year. Next year will be as important as this year. PM

Anything that you want to add, any words of conclusion? In my opinion, there is a momentum now for relations between Poland and Mexico in terms of economic, cultural and historical conditions in order for Mexico to become the most important partner for Poland in Latin America and Poland the most important partner for Mexico in Central Europe. We see Poland as a hub for Central Europe. We recognize the leadership that Poland has in this part of the world. We have a tremendous sense of natural empathy and affini• ty with Polish culture and history. PM

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International Relations

POLAND NEEDS PARTNERS OUTSIDE EUROPE

In the last days of April, President of Poland Andrzej Duda paid a visit to Mexico. The visit was accompanied by an opening of the Trade Office in Mexico by the Polish Investment and Trade Agency. On the occasion of this event, many questions have been raised. They are answered by WOJCIECH FEDKO, Vice-President of the Polish Investment and Trade Agency (PAIH) responsible for the development of the PAIH Foreign Trade Offices.

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International Relations Why Mexico? Does this mark the launch of another ”Go ...” Programme? This time ”Go America”? In order to play a greater role in global markets, Poland needs partners outside the European neighbourhood, especially in this part of the world. It is the second - after San Francisco - PAIH Foreign Trade Office opened in America. President Andrzej Duda, who is the first head of the Polish state after 1989 who paid an official visit to Mexico, opened the Mexican branch of the Agency. This gesture is an eloquent testimony to the growing importance of the leader of Latin America for Poland's foreign economic policy. Despite this very friendly, long-term political relationship, the potential of mutual business relations still remains largely untapped, especially in the investment area. The liberalization of access to the Mexican market after the accession of Poland to the European Union enlivened somewhat Polish- Mexican trade. In 2016, its value amounted to about EUR 1 billion. However, the level of mutual investment is counted only in tens of millions. As a comparison, the value of all foreign direct investments handled by the Polish Investment and Trade Agency last year, is EUR 1.7 billion. So we are there within the new government programme to help change this state of affairs. Both countries - Mexico and Poland - have enormous potential. It is time to take advantage of this opportunity. The values will increase if Polish companies see the attractiveness and also mutual similarity of both countries, thanks to which it will be easier for them to start there. Just like Poland in Europe, Mexico in America stands out with a large and highly receptive internal market - 100 million consumers. If one adds to it that Mexico is in the same customs area as Canada and the United States, we can talk about access to all of North America. Mexico also has a similar industrial structure as Poland, and it is in the top ten most attractive investment destinations in the world. Operating in the heart of Latin America, Polish manufacturers could thus serve markets located in this part of the world much more effectively. This is a particularly interesting prospect for our automotive component manufacturers working with international giants who assemble their cars in Poland and Mexico. All this, combined with the ease of setting up a business in Mexico and relatively low labour costs gives a very attractive "incentive mix" to Polish companies. PM

The business mission was also attended by entrepreneurs. What kind of companies were there? Mexico is a market with enormous potential. Which industries

BOTH COUNTRIES - MEXICO AND POLAND - HAVE ENORMOUS POTENTIAL. IT IS TIME TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THIS OPPORTUNITY. should seriously consider exporting in this direction? Our presence in Mexico is due to both the great potential of this country and the maturity of Polish companies to compete in the global market. The respect shown to Polish entrepreneurs abroad is one of the best measures of the growing prestige of Poland in the world. We offer the mature machinery, automotive and aviation, transport, construction, agri-food and furniture industries. Such companies were primarily brought to Mexico by PAIH. We also believe that IT companies, the pharmaceutical industry, medical equipment manufacturers, and excellent Polish cosmetics, as well as any Polish company with innovative products and services, have chances here. The agreement on cooperation between the Polish Investment and Trade Agency and its Mexican counterpart ProMexico, which was signed during the mission headed by President Andrzej Duda, should open Mexican doors even wider for further Polish companies. It will allow for the precise definition of all strategic segments of both economies. The tightening cooperation between the agencies from both countries, including the launch of the Foreign Trade Office in Mexico, is the first step in successful business deployments, including the revitalization of foreign direct investment - on both sides of the Atlantic. The Office in Mexico was set up at the very beginning of the implementation of government policy supporting Polish companies in foreign expansion. How is the Trade Office going to operate now? Will it be very different from previous Trade and Investment Promotion Sections (WPHI)? The untapped by Polish companies potential of the Mexican market, which I mentioned, justified the opening of the office as soon as possible. That is why Mexico was at the very beginning of our list. It is worth emphasizing that the PAIH Foreign Trade Office in Mexico City is a completely new structure. It does not replace the Promotion and Trade Department, because there was PM

no such unit before. The office was launched in the most important business point of Mexico's map, in the very heart of Mexico City - the Torre Mayor building. The mechanics of the Office is based on the new bilateral model of the Agency's operation, that means close cooperation of expert teams in Warsaw and in Torre Mayor with companies, who are our clients. The key value which they receive from us is support through efficient management of business information. Due to this, the business risk when entering Mexico with Polish products, services and investments is reduced. In addition, companies are given access to a whole range of financing or insurance instruments, thanks to the Agency's cooperation with institutions affiliated to the Polish Development Fund. The same mechanism applies to each of the Foreign Trade Offices of the Agency. What can entrepreneurs expect from the activity of these facilities? Will the Trade Offices support only Polish entrepreneurs interested in the Mexican market? Can Mexican businessmen also get professional help? Managing business information using strictly business support tools is the essence of our activity. In this way we are working with entrepreneurs to properly position their products and services. Each of the Agency's Foreign Trade Offices around the world, and soon there will be around 70 of them, will provide information on the key legal regulations of the selected market, search for potential business partners on such market, organize business missions, meetings and trainings, and search for opportunities to enhance business cooperation appearing in conjunction with trade fairs or demand for services and products. Although the first client is actually a Polish company, naturally, we also support foreign entrepreneurs by looking for partners on the other side. Such institutions as the Office in Mexico will also be the first contact for local companies that wish to enter Poland as an investor or to carry out, for example, a joint • research project with a Polish company. PM

5-6/2017 polish market

International Relations

POLISHCHINESE

agreements

n June last year, an economic visit to Poland was paid by China’s President Xi Jinping. The numerous meetings with the Polish side show what an important business partner China is for Poland. As Polish Prime Minister Beata Szydło said at the time: “It is an important visit. We have high hopes for it. We have many economic and investment projects that we would like to jointly implement. Poland is a rapidly developing

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country that has a leading role in the region. Our ambition is for the economic development programme adopted by the government to contribute to the even faster development of our state.” Poland is undertaking cooperation and trade with China under the New Silk Road project – the Chinese concept of a new trade route linking Asia with Europe. “This project has a great future and is an excellent opportunity for economic

International Relations cooperation and building joint relations and initiatives,” said Prime Minister Beata Szydło. The Prime Minister and Presidents Xi Jinping and Andrzej Duda took part in the opening of the international New Silk Road Forum and the 4th Poland-China Regional Forum. The New Silk Road gives great opportunities to both countries. Poland might become a place of transshipment of Chinese goods, and for China - a window with a view to ... Europe.

CENTRAL

TRANSPOT HUB

Today in Poland we have the fastest railway connection from China to Europe - the Łódź-Chengdu line, the sea freight container forwarding line - linking Gdańsk with the ports of East Asia and China, and the Warsaw - Beijing flights organized by the Polish Airlines LOT. More and more often the government is talking about the project of the Central Transport Hub - the air, rail and also passenger hub. Such a solution appeared, among other things, to attract our Chinese partners.

AGREEMENTS, AGREEMENTS,

AGREEMENTS

The deepening of not only political but also economic cooperation was of great importance to Deputy Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki. Deepening cooperation in the area of industry, infrastructure, investment, trade, energy, finance, and also strengthening it between the Polish and Chinese regions - these are the topics of new bilateral agreements signed by Deputy Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki with his Chinese counterparts in the presence of the Presidents of both states. A memorandum was also signed on the establishment of the Steering Committee on Industrial Cooperation, which is to contribute to promoting cooperation between industry and enterprises of both parties to the agreement. The cooperation and exchange of experience in the area of information&communication technology applications envisage the signing of the Memorandum of Agreement on the Development of Information Communication (Information Silk Road). It will cover areas such as smart cities, broadband networks and satellite services. The creation of test zones for economic information cooperation of the information silk road between Poland and China and the joint designation of partner cities for cooperation will be promoted. The agreement is intended to support the development of cooperation in areas such as electronic commerce, information services, facilitating logistics and connectivity in the field of commercial communication. On the other hand, strengthening of investment cooperation concerning logistics infrastructure with institutions and enterprises is envisaged in a memorandum on cooperation, which was signed by Deputy Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki and Chinese Trade Minister Hucheng Gao. "Cooperation with China allows us to unlock enormous development potential. That is why we are reinforcing it, and the preliminary agreements, which we signed, indicate the direction of its development in many fields. All commercial agreements that we are working on now are intended to serve Polish entrepreneurs," Deputy Prime Minister Morawiecki said. And he added: "We would like to take advantage of China's "big

An agreement between the government of the Republic of Poland and the government of the People’s Republic of China on tourism cooperation and a memorandum of understanding on cooperation in the area of water economy were signed during the meeting.

The Prime Minister Beata Szydło and Presidents Xi Jinping

appetite" to invest within the concept of the New Silk Road, in which there is great potential for infrastructure development.”

THE MOST IMPORTANT

DIPLOMATIC EVENT OF 2017

In May, Prime Minister Beata Szydło took part in a meeting of Asian and several European leaders devoted to the idea of the New Silk Road "One Belt, One Road". The New Silk Road is a plan to build modern infrastructure that facilitates trade and cultural exchange between Europe, Africa and Asia. For the first time this idea was presented in 2013 by President of the People's Republic of China Xi Jinping. • 5-6/2017 polish market

Finance

LISTENING TO CUSTOMERS ZDZISŁAW BIK, President and General Director of Fasing SA, talks to “Polish Market.”

convinced that the high quality of our products and the good references we’ve received from our customers will enable us to expand our operations in China and win new contracts. We take part in mining trade shows in China on the regular basis. In October, we will once again visit, as an exhibitor, the China Coal & Mining exhibition in Beijing. It is an excellent opportunity to hold meetings, share ideas and present new innovative products. Does China differ markedly in some respects from other foreign markets? Does building business relations in China require more effort than elsewhere in the world? Every foreign market has its own rules. Relationships are always important, especially in the Chinese market. We have opened our office in Beijing, Fasing Sino-Pol (Beijing) Mining Equipment and Tools Co. Ltd., to be closer to our customers and quickly respond to their needs for technical support and maintenance. What is more, we have a warehouse in Tianjin, that enables us to guarantee quick deliveries. Last year, we celebrated the 10th anniversary of our joint venture company Shandong Liangda Fasing Round Link Chains. Its mission is to bring Fasing technologies to the Far East, as well as to manufacture and sell Fasing Group products in the very receptive Chinese market . We listen to our customers as they know best which form of support they expect from us as the producer. PM

You have been active on the international market for 10 years now. One of the main markets, and a very special one, is China. What do you think of your presence in China? China is a very dynamic market with a huge mining potential. We’ve been working for many years to become established on this market and we continue our efforts by regular meetings with our Chinese partners. I am PM

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Polish businesses are still afraid of expanding abroad. Do you think your presence in a foreign market may provide an example for other Polish companies to follow show them that foreign expansion is feasible and that it pays off? The global market is constantly developing. If we want to be present on it we need to make the effort; and the risk is always a part of the equation. When we took our first steps in China, I was convinced that the road which the company chose would be successful though sometimes difficult. Trusted staff, hard work and dedication translate into results. Fasing long experience in chain production on the Chinese market has enabled to record favourable sales figures and win an increasingly strong position. Looking back, I am proud of the position we have achieved. PM

Do you plan to expand onto new markets? If so, where are you going to move? China’s coal mining market has the biggest potential in the world and there is still a lot to do in it. Our products find application in almost every sector of industry: from mining, power industry, construction and machine-building industry to fishing. We are currently holding many talks in the American, Australian and Russian markets. At the same time, we are looking for new trading places in South America. At present, we’re working on gaining a stable position in India and • Vietnam. PM

POLISH - CHINESE RESEARCH CENTER

- NEW SILK ROAD IN POZNAŃ!

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International Relations

E-SHOP WITH SUBCARPATHIAN FLAVOURS Food from Podkarpackie province (Subcarpathia) is highly valued for its quality by nearly 27% of Poles, according to nationwide research commissioned by the Marshal's Office of Podkarpackie Province. Great interest in culinary products "made in Podkarpackie" has been used by the Pro Carpathia Association from Rzeszów which supports regional producers.

t began - already in 2006 -with activities promoting traditional food in the media by organizing trips for journalists to local, family companies operating in the province. It was followed by co-operation with agri-food processing companies, which resulted in the establishment of the Podkarpackie Flavours Cluster (January 2013) as well as the catering industry, which in August 2013 resulted in the creation of the Podkarpackie Flavours Culinary Trail one of the largest in Poland bringing together 50 facilities. In 2015, the Association launched the Podkarpackie Flavours Shelves, on which dozens of products from local producers have found their place. Currently, they can be found in nearly 20 restaurants, hotels, shops, tourist information points, and even at the international airport in Jasionka near Rzeszów.

FOOD WITH HOME DELIVERY

The consequence of these activities was the launch in January 2017 of an online shop offering traditional, regional and organic food produced in Podkarpackie province. ”We already have more than 100 products from various segments from 16 plants, affiliated in the Podkarpackie Flavours Cluster”, says Ewelina Nycz from the Pro Carpathia Association. ”On the website www.sklep.podkarpackiesmaki.pl one can easily make a purchase. Ultimately, we are in for making it possible to do shopping from abroad through the English-language version. Now there is also such a possibility, but orders can be sent by e-mail”, adds Ewelina Nycz. Among the 16 producers, most of which are the family companies whose products are in the e-shop, we can find, producers of dried vegetables and fruit, handmade chocolates, companies offering traditional bread, rye sourdough for sour rye soup, sausage paste, rose petals preserves in sugar and high quality honeys, also with chocolate. One can buy cold pressed oils and fruit juices, and even ... mineral water from the Narola spring. Manufacturers offering their goods in the e-shop are not anonymous. Anyone interested in buying can read about the plants on the website, learn a lot about the production process and about the articles themselves. And this is

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important for consumers who are increasingly looking for quality foods that they often associate with their home and family. These are the flavours to which we are increasingly coming back and which we are constantly looking for. And the e-shop is not only about the sale itself, but also about the promotion of local products as well as their manufacturers in Poland and abroad. ”We count on the patriotism of consumers who went from Podkarpackie abroad to England or Norway. And they will show our e-shop to their friends telling them that one can buy regional food here which is not pumped and not improved with chemicals, such food whose process of production is to a large extent based on tradition”, says Ewelina Nycz.

THE ONLY CHOCOLATE WITH CORNUS BERRY IN THE WORLD The next step, which the Pro Carpathia Association has already made, is its own production. It resulted from the search for truly "Podkarpackie flavours". As a result, they came across the edible cornus fruit, called the "Polish olive", used in both cuisine and natural medicine. The berry is used to make compotes, jams, preserves, and also fruit liqueurs - famous cornus liqueurs. But how to "sell" the fruit of cornus which is naturally slightly tart? The way proved to be relatively simple: what we love most - regardless of tastes, the place of residence, race or religion - is ... chocolate. Hence, the Pro Carpathia Association came up with the idea of handmade chocolate with cornus berry. The best quality of real chocolate is accompanied by dried fruit of the cornus, which fully preserves the properties and nutritional values of fresh fruit. The Association launched a unique line of handmade chocolates, created from passion and love for this product and for the Podkarpackie tradition of good taste. Milk chocolate with cornus berry contains 33.6% cocoa seeds extract (cacao pulp), while bitter chocolate has 70.4% of it. Of course, they can be purchased online at www.sklep.podkarpackiesmaki.pl. •

Economy

KOMBUCHA ELIXIR OF LONGEVITY K

ombucha, is a health drink produced in the process of fermentation of green tea with tea mushroom called "kombucha". The slightly sparkling drink is often called the elixir of longevity that has been known and consumed for thousands of years. Opinions about it have always been positive and have been reflected in the health condition of 100 year olds in the Caucasus examined by Japanese doctors. Hence, its common name is "Japanese mushroom", although it is rather a lichen gathering several colonies of yeast and beneficial strains of microorganisms living in symbiosis, which positively affect the human organism. Kombucha contains a number of organic acids, including acetic, lactic and gluconic acid, vitamins from group B, ascorbic acid (vitamin C) and mineral components such as zinc, magnesium, calcium, iron and copper. It is a natural detoxicant and invaluable helper of the digestive system, because it contains beneficial microorganisms which, when populating

62â&#x20AC;&#x201A; polish marketâ&#x20AC;&#x160;

the digestive system, produce enzymes that support efficient digestion, improving the removal of food leftovers and waste and improving and stimulating the immune system. It has detoxifying properties and restores the body's natural balance. Kombucha, through its action, restores a state in the body where self-healing and self-regeneration abilities of the organism are naturally activated. Kombucha is not a medicine whose activity is focused on treating the symptoms of the disease, but it naturally removes the causes of these symptoms. In order to increase the positive impact of the beverage on the human body, Polish producer of natural Kombucha - Naturia s.c. co-working with the University of Life Sciences in Lublin, the Faculty of Food Science and Biotechnology produced Kombucha with hop, Kombucha with mint and Kombucha with nettle. The beverage has a Certificate of ecological product compliance. â&#x20AC;˘

源动行切一的们我。求需的自于您

Meet us at SIAL 2016 Hall W4 stand B076 欢迎来访上海中食展W4展厅B076展台

Finance

KDPW TO DEVELOP POST-TRADE SERVICES IWONA SROKA, PhD, President & CEO of KDPW and KDPW_CCP, talks to "Polish Market". KDPW has approved a new strategy for 2017-2021. What are its main objectives? KDPW’s development strategy for 20172021 focuses on unlocking domestic potential based on organic growth and the development of a comprehensive range of post-trade services for Polish and international financial market participants. Our participants, including the clients of KDPW and the KDPW_CCP clearing house, should not have any need to turn to foreign providers for post-trade services. We also want the solutions offered domestically to be attractive to foreign players present on the Polish financial market. The strategic projects covered by the new strategy have been broadly consulted with our stakeholders. Their contribution to the debate about the future of the industry is instrumental to the success of our objective: to create scale within the Polish capital market. KDPW services include the registration of securities as well as the clearing and settlement of transactions in all classes of assets available to be traded, both on and off the exchange. With our comprehensive end-to-end range of services, KDPW aims to be the provider of first choice for Polish investors, issuers, market participants and trading venues. KDPW will develop a range of international services related to the registration of transactions reported to trade repositories in accordance with EU regulatory requirements and the issuance of LEI codes in line with global standards to both Polish and international entities. The goals, projects and priorities covered by the strategy provide a solid base for efficient and sustainable future development. I should also emphasise that our key efforts rely on innovative technologies for which we have been widely recognised and won awards in the IT and financial industries. PM

We are also planning to develop interoperability and harmonise with European infrastructure, not least to provide services in foreign markets, now eased by European regulations, according to market needs. Your approach seems to match the government Strategy of Responsible Development. What could be the role of KDPW in the implementation of the Strategy of Responsible Development? In my opinion, KDPW’s business model is a tailor-made fit for the Strategy of Responsible Development. KDPW wants to develop those services where its strengths lie. We employ highly skilled people and hold unique proprietary technologies; we focus on our stakeholders and Polish market participants. I need to stress that a strong capital market needs Polish companies. This is well in line with the Strategy of Responsible Development. In addition to making a contribution by growing the scale of the financial market and facilitating access of SMEs to funding on the capital market, we may consider measures defined by the Strategy of Responsible Development as necessary to promote Poland as a European economic and financial hub. The Polish market is special in that the share of SMEs in the economy is particularly high; the Strategy of Responsible Development considers growth of SMEs to be a key driver of the Polish economy. A growing presence of SMEs as issuers on the capital market is an important objective of market infrastructure institutions. With SMEs in mind, KDPW will develop a range of services for issuers, including a proxy voting service which would reduce the cost of participation in general meetings, as well as the maintenance of shareholder registers facilitating access by issuers to shareholder details, in PM

particular to improve investor relations, based on a stable shareholding structure that wants to grow company value and protect it against hostile takeovers. We will also work to automate KDPW’s communications with issuers in the process of registering new issues and handling corporate actions. Once again, it is all about state-of-the-art innovative solutions. One of the objectives of the new strategy is to expand the KDPW Group’s range of cross-border services for foreign businesses in Poland and Polish businesses in international markets. In addition to mobilising local capital, as foreseen in the Strategy for Responsible Development, in order to build up long-term capital among Poles, it is also necessary to help Polish issuers raise long-term capital abroad, in the absence of sufficient capital at home. This is why the KDPW Group is working with European infrastructure institutions to process instruments in foreign currencies dedicated to foreign investors, including covered bonds, and also in future Eurobonds, once legal barriers have been overcome. KDPW is implementing projects which simplify the registration and tax processing of debt instruments recorded in omnibus securities accounts for foreign clients, helping them to obtain the status of securities eligible for use as collateral in the Eurosystem credit operations. This could make Polish securities more attractive to foreign investors and reduce the cost of capital raised by Polish financial institutions. We will also work to overcome barriers both to access of foreign clients to clearing and settlement in Poland and access of Polish investors to clearing and settlement on international markets via the KDPW Group. • PM

5-6/2017 polish market

Finance

THINKING ABOUT

ENTREPRENEURS

MAŁGORZATA SZTURMOWICZ, Member of the Board of Idea Bank, talks to Ewelina Janczylik-Foryś about the company’s financial performance and plans for 2017. In 2016, Idea Bank Group made a record net profit of PLN441 million. The value of credit products sold by the Group reached a new high of PLN8.3 billion, which represented a 33% increase on 2015. Could this profit be higher if it had not been for the bank tax? The year 2016 was the best for the Group in financial terms. We have been present on the market for six years and we are still growing very fast. But it should be remembered that last year’s record profit resulted to a large extent from a single transaction in June 2016. PM

You mean the sale of GetBack? Yes, we sold the GetBack company. We received a very good offer from the buyer. Our return was three times higher than the capital invested. Income from the sale of this company added more than PLN200 million to the PLN441 million we generated in net profit. But you asked me about the bank tax. In 2016, counting from February, the tax cost us PLN47 million. The Group’s net profit would have been higher by one fourth if it had not been for this burden. PM

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The Group wants to diversify its business activity by offering clients a wide range of financial products. Is it one of the reasons why you have

decided to buy a 75% stake in Getin Leasing? The activity of Getin Leasing complements the operations of Idea Leasing. The first company focuses mainly on passenger cars. The latter specializes in leasing delivery vans, lorries, machines and equipment. The acquisition of the stake in Getin Leasing will enable us to considerably increase our market share and broaden the range of services we offer to businesses. Another product is the innovative “pay as you drive” scheme for paying lease rates. Tell us more about it. We launched the Happy Miles service at the end of December and the beginning of January. It is a response to the changing expectations of consumers who do not want to pay for having a piece of equipment, computer programs or a vehicle, but for actually using them. The monthly lease rate is calculated depending on the number of kilometres travelled. Let us imagine that a transport company has a fleet of 10 vehicles and four vehicles are not used for various reasons, like for example a breakdown, unexpected stop at a border, or a driver’s sickness. Meanwhile, the company has to pay a specific lease rate for its vehicles. Four of them do not generate income because they are not in operation. However, the company still PM

has to bear the costs associated with the lease rates. In our scheme, you pay only for the kilometres you have travelled. In place of a fixed rate, we offer a variable rate. All your flagship projects – the mobile cash deposit machine, Idea Hub outlets, Idea Cloud banking and accounting system, and “pay as you drive” scheme – serve small businesses. Our business strategy calls for creating solutions making it easier to run a business. Many small entrepreneurs who have just started business activity do not want to or cannot bear the costs of renting an office. They work out of their home or a coffee shop. Hence the idea to establish Idea Hubs - coworking spaces where the entrepreneurs have the available conference rooms which they can reserve for meetings with their clients. Please note that we have created a community of entrepreneurs around a banking branch, a hub. Our slogan is: “Proud to Be an Entrepreneur.” We organize many training sessions, meetings and workshops for entrepreneurs to support enterprise. PM

As a result, Idea Bank is becoming a bank of choice. We have a 15% share in the market for loans intended for one-person PM

Finance

WE HAVE CREATED A COMMUNITY OF ENTREPRENEURS AROUND A BANKING BRANCH, A HUB. OUR SLOGAN IS “PROUD TO BE AN ENTREPRENEUR.”

companies. One can hardly find another institution committed so strongly to projects targeted at entrepreneurs. Many universal banks treat this group of clients only as an addition to retail banking. But you have now started to offer attractive products to retail clients. Indeed, but only in the area of deposits. A retail client may open a deposit account with us. But we do not offer any credit products to individuals who do not conduct business activity. PM

You have introduced the rule that basic services should be offered for free. But fee-free accounts are no longer standard on the market. In recent days we have heard about further increases in fees by your competition – for money transfers and for withdrawing money from ATMs. We are not going to collect fees for basic services. But remember that the market has changed a lot over the past year or so. Additional burdens have been imposed on the banking sector and regulations have been adopted constraining the banks’ ability to collect some fees. The situation is made worse by low interest rates, which limit the profitability of loans. In the case of large universal banks, the introduction of an even minimal fee may be an important source of income given their large scale of operations. Despite these difficult conditions, in the first quarter the number of our clients with a bank account exceeded 300,000. We try to encourage our clients to actively use their accounts. In exchange, they receive from us many additional solutions, like for example an office in the centre of a city for free. PM

Speaking about solutions for entrepreneurs, I was surprised by your mobile cash deposit machine. Your fleet of vehicles with cash deposit machines is composed of around 19 cars and in March your clients paid in a record amount of money. In April, this project celebrated its second anniversary. After this period we can say confidently: “Yes, it does work,” although initially few people believed it will be a success. In March, we noted a record amount of money paid in by clients – PLN51.5 million. We can see that this source of deposits is increasingly important for us. By the end of the year we want to double the number of vehicles with cash deposit machines. We can see that the service contributes to more activity on our clients’ accounts. Balances on the current accounts grew 130% year on year - from PLN1.4 billion to PLN3.2 billion at the end of March. PM

Clients may order a car with a cash deposit machine using a smartphone application. Indeed. Using the application you can see where the cash deposit machine is located and how it moves around the city. You can order the service through our application, electronic banking platform or call centre for a specific time and pay in your money. It is an excellent solution for people conducting activity in large cities. I am proud to say that this solution is truly innovative. We receive many inquiries from bankers from other countries. The popularity of this solution has surpassed our expectations. PM

All the modern technologies in the banking sector, like electronic transfers, mobile payments and cloud solutions, are developing rapidly in Poland. An average user does not think about security. How do you ensure security to your clients? Cybercrime is indeed a hot topic. Spending on IT Security is among the biggest expenses incurred by banks to be able to identify threats and eliminate them as quickly as possible. PM

We have recently heard the news that Mastercard has managed to design a payments card which, apart from a chip, features a fingerprint scanner. Will biometric security features become widespread? Many banks are already trying to introduce biometric security features and it seems we will indeed be moving in this direction. It is the question of client authentication. New technologies raise the level of security. Banks are strongly regulated in terms of security and simply have to meet these standards. PM

What are your plans? Are you going to launch another innovative solution? We have heard about Idea Hub on trains. In the second half of the year, we plan to start another project. We are going to create a social lending platform. For the time being, it is a very promising project promoted by our bank. Our latest idea is mobile coworking on PKP Intercity trains. On the basis of our surveys, we have concluded that travel is an inseparable part of running one’s own business. Entrepreneurs meet their clients and business partners, conduct market research. Small firms sometimes grow bigger and set up offices in other cities. Entrepreneurs most often travel by rail. Our surveys show that 80% of entrepreneurs work while travelling on business. As we always try to be where entrepreneurs are, we want to accompany them when they travel. In conjunction with PKP Intercity, we have created the first mobile office Idea Hub Express, giving the passengers an opportunity to better exploit their time when travelling. In April, Idea Hub Express ran between Warsaw and Poznań, in May it will run between Warsaw and Cracow and in June between Warsaw and Wrocław, leaving the capital city in the morning • and returning in the evening. PM

5-6/2017 polish market

Finance

CUSTOMER SECURITY IS THE PILLAR OF THE COMPANY At present the government is encouraging Polish entrepreneurs to expand abroad. Also Bank Zachodni WBK has invited Polish companies to participate in the Export Development Programme for the fifth time. What is the Polish potential? Which foreign markets should we be most interested in? Which product should we sail on to wider waters with? The Export Development Programme is addressed to companies wishing to start or expand their operations in international markets. Polish entrepreneurs operate mainly in the European Union. But in remote countries there is also great potential for development. Bank Zachodni WBK is part of the global Santander Group, we have branches around the whole world. That is why we can offer our customers the opportunity to use this untapped potential by providing access to more remote and less popular markets such as Brazil, Argentina, Chile and Mexico. Santander Group is very strongly established in many countries. It cooperates with local enterprises. BZWBK, through its cooperation with the Group, can offer its clients the help in getting to know individual markets or even in contacting potential customers who, at the same time, are Santander's customers. So far several business missions, in which the Bank was an organization bringing together entrepreneurs - importers and exporters - have taken place. Some of these meetings took the form of virtual missions, in the form of videoconferences, during which we had potential partners on both sides. PM

MIROSŁAW SKIBA, Vice-President of the Management Board of Bank Zachodni WBK managing the Retail Banking Division talks to Ewelina Janczylik-Foryś. 68 polish market

Finance

Have virtual business missions translated into concrete cooperation agreements, specific transactions? Yes, we know about agreements and transactions. However, we cannot disclose details as it is the business secret of these enterprises. We know one thing. Such a form of support is most desirable for companies - precisely because the biggest challenge in foreign trade is finding a contrator. Clients tell us about it during the meetings of the Export Development Programme. PM

By acting as the global Group you have a competitive edge. You can serve entrepreneurs with your knowledge, market recognition and experience. Yes, that is right. We have a special portal for entrepreneurs who are interested in cooperation with a foreign partner. The Santander Trade Portal is full of information on the characteristics of individual markets and contains top quality information from the most reliable sources. All precise information is available for our clients in one place. PM

Has BZWBK become the bank of choice for companies thinking of foreign expansion? This is very important to us. We want to build entrepreneurial awareness and indicate the real examples that have entered successfully foreign markets. We are a bank that not only deals directly with loans for such ventures, but is also a partner having the potential to bring together potential clients. We do so in Poland as well. PM

There are also the Company Evolutions meetings dedicated to companies from the SME sector that serve this aim. We are creating a platform that facilitates cooperation between participants of this project. Customers appreciate that during many meetings they have the opportunity not only to gain theoretical knowledge, spread their wings, but also to establish business relationships with our other clients. Our goal is not to sell a bank product, but the development of the entrepreneur. A bank product can only be a means to accomplishing this goal. PM

Can only big players think of foreign expansion, or can companies from the SME sector think of it as well? Small, medium and large companies may consider foreign expansion. Nevertheless, large companies are often able to research the market on their own, they have many specialists, lawyers who will help them interpret

the relevant provisions. Small and medium businesses sometimes do not have such facilities. Of course, we cannot make the decision for the company and make the right moves, but what we can do is to make it easier for them to get access to external markets using the international character of the Santander Group. Based on your experience, listening to customer feedback, are you able to determine specifically the main barriers to business development? One of the barriers is not knowing markets, the lack of a detailed analysis and information on local conditions. As I mentioned, this type of information does not pose such a problem for large companies. For small businesses, market research is a big expense, but not a guarantee of success. This discourages small companies from attempting to go overseas. I think this topic is very important, hence, our Santander Trade Portal. The next challenge is practical business organization - here we have legal, logistic, cultural, marketing and sales matters. At this stage it is often worth turning to a company that specializes in advising on a given market for help. We - which is probably not common for banks and is a unique value for our customers â&#x20AC;&#x201C; can also serve as an advisor. In the Santander Group countries there is the International Desk, which is very capable to help our client in organizing his/her business. We also have Santander Network, where we have prepared lists of recommended subcontractors for our clients. And the most important challenge that I have already mentioned - finding contractors. A lot of activity is required in this area, but companies also have support. There are business missions, outbound exhibitions, and a system of support provided to entrepreneurs by public institutions is developing. It is worth developing this support strategy from the side of the government, local Polish trade offices, and more strongly involving commercial companies that can also provide knowledge and tools. This, in my opinion, will make it easier for Polish companies to expand abroad. PM

According to your data, the number of transactions in mobile channels increased by 90% y/y. The development of electronic and mobile banking also introduces a number of threats to the user. Half of our 4 million clients, use e-banking and mobile banking. 2 million of our PM

clients are digital clients! 900,000 people use mobile banking. These figures clearly indicate that digitization has become a fact. Over the last year, the number of transactions made remotely amounted to 97%. On the one hand, it is a great convenience for clients, but on the other hand it is a kind of threat. Banks are very concerned about digital security, systematically introducing new security standards. Digital security is of key importantance to us, and our customers appreciate it. Bank Zachodni WBK's actions aimed at increasing the level of cybersecurity in the financial sector were appreciated in this year's edition of the "Golden Banker" competition, in the special category: "Safe Bank". For the eighth time, the Bankier.pl and Internet users chose banks that stand out with the best practices in the industry. However, it is vital to emphasize that security is equally important on the customersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; side. Therefore, we are constantly educating users of remote channels, we remind them of the basic principles of safe banking. In a press release, I have read that the Bank decided to carry out the digital transformation programme at the Bank for the development of innovative products and services. You respond quickly to market needs. We see how technology affects human life. In almost every field of life, technology is immensely important. With 2 million digital clients, the rapidly growing number of mobile banking users shows that we have to respond to the needs of our customers to be the best bank. We need to get with our services exactly where our client is. And the client is more and more often in the digital world. In this process we simplify our procedures so that the client can bank with us in a simple and secure way. PM

What about biometric security? Does the bank also consider its introduction? We watch very carefully what is happening in the market. As the first bank in Poland we implemented voice biometrics in our contact centre, and we recognize the client by voice. Mobile banking uses not only a PIN code, but identification can also be made through a fingerprint reader. We are working on more advanced face biometric solutions now and we will be offering this new verification method to our customers this year. We want to offer solutions that are comfortable for the customer but, above all, â&#x20AC;˘ are safe. PM

5-6/2017 polish market

Finance

NEW PROSPECTS FOR FINANCIAL SECTOR, MEETING OF

LEADERS

OF BANKING AND INSUR ANCE 2017

etween 12 and 13 April 2017, the Meeting of Leaders of Banking and Insurance, consisting of the 13th Banking Forum, the 9th Insurance Forum and the 6th Grand Gala of Leaders of Banking and Insurance World took place at the Sheraton Hotel in Warsaw. This is a cyclical event organized by MMC Polska, bringing together all the most important personalities and companies representing the Polish financial sector. The event brought together 645 participants who had the opportunity to participate in 11 panel discussions panels actively carried out by 79 speakers. The first day of the meeting started with the common part of the 13th Banking Forum and the 9th Insurance Forum. Małgorzata Zaleska, Director of Banking Institute, Warsaw School of Economics (SGH), moderated the "Regulations in the context of new technologies and taxes" discussion. The effects on the economy, the financial sector and customers, the opportunities and challenges of the regulatory framework, the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MIFID) and systemic risk, the impact of tax

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from financial institutions on the development of banks and insurers and business-administration co-operation were discussed. The panellists were: Joao Bras Jorge, President of the Management Board, Bank Millennium, Krzysztof Kalicki, President of the Management Board, Deutsche Bank Polska, Prof. Konrad Raczkowski, Chairman of the Supervisory Board, DM BOŚ S.A. and Andrzej Sieradz, Digital Advisor, Microsoft. The second panel discussion "Finance in the age of digitization" began with a presentation by Dariusz Piotrowski, Member of the Management Board, Microsoft. What was discussed was how to create new business models and set new development trends based on innovative technologies, the pace and directions of technology development, the changes in technology use by banks, the costs of technological change directions, the expectations of modern clients (millennials), express smartphonization of society and ways of reaching out to the non-traditional client. The debate was moderated by Dariusz Piotrowski, Member of the Management Board, Microsoft, and the speakers included Zbigniew Jagiełło, President of the

Finance Management Board, PKO Bank Polski, Piotr Czarnecki, President of the Management Board, Raiffeisen Polbank, Brunon Bartkiewicz, President of the Management Board, ING Bank Śląski, Małgorzata Szturmowicz, Member of the Management Board, Idea Bank, Daniel Arak, Member of the Management Board, ITMAGINATION and Norbert Biedrzycki, CEO of Atos Polska, VP CEE System Intergation. Then there were two simultaneously held discussions, one of the 13th Banking Forum: "Regulatory impact on banks’ strategies", the second of the 9th Insurance Forum: "New insurance risks as an opportunity to develop new products and the insurance industry." The first one dealt with matters of trust capital, conduct risk, MiFID II and RODO, and new regulations vs restrictions adopted by business strategy banks. The second one dealt with reviewing the most interesting industries as an inspiration for new products and places to look for new insurance risks, in which areas of life and in which industries. The second day of the Meeting of Leaders of Banking and Insurance was divided into two parallelly held meetings. The first panel discussion of the 13th Banking Forum "Trends in payments: Poland is in many ways already a leader - how can we benefit from the development of new generation of payments, accelerate their growth and maintain its leadership in this area? What changes wait for us on the payment market?” was moderated by Paweł Widawski, Director of Payment Systems Team, Digital Banking and Cybersecurity, Polish Bank Association. The panel discussed the anticipated / planned new solutions, the popularization of electronic payments and the impact of the development of non-cash payments on tax collection. Another discussion was "Status of cloud adoption in the banking sector". The panellists were trying to answer the questions: Where are we today? What has worked? What else is there to do? Do we already have functioning cloud solutions implementations? In what areas? What are their effects? The moderator was Andrzej Gibas, Financial Sector Director, Microsoft, and his opinions were shared by: Dorota Poniatowska-Mańczak, Chief Information Officer, Credit Agricole, Tomasz Motyl, Chief Innovation Officer, Alior Bank, Roman Szwed, Chairman of the Management Board, Atende, Jarosław Wolak, Director of the Legal Department, mBank, Agata Szeliga, Partner, Legal Adviser, Kancelaria SKS and Marek Zamłyński, Managing Director, IDC Poland. The second day of the 9th Insurance Forum opened with the discussion "The new generation - challenges for the industry, products, distribution channels." There were discussions about the Y and Z generation, new business models in insurance, the first generation who grew up in the world having wide access to information from unprecedented in the human history technology development, and about how to construct products and insurance processes to provide millennials with a solid sense of care and feedback. The participants also had the opportunity to listen to the voice of panellists in the discussion on "The new operational models - digitization and robotics in insurance." The second day of the 9th Insurance Forum ended with the discussion "The future of car insurance”. The panellists discussed the role of motor insurance in the economy and for insurance companies; conditions that should be met for insurers to achieve profitability in motor insurance. The panellists included

Agnieszka Wrońska, President of the Management Board, Link4, Rafał Cegieła, Managing Director for Property Products, PZU S.A., Michał Gomowski, President of the Management Board, Benefia Insurance, Radoslaw Kamiński, COO, Allianz Rafał Stankiewicz, Vice President of the Management Board, Warta and Daniel Arak Member of the Management Board, ITMAGINATION. •

The finale of the first day of the event was the 6th Grand Gala of Leaders of Banking and Insurance World, during which the Award Committee, consisting of recognized authorities in the industry, rewarded those who contributed to the development of the banking and insurance sectors, as well as the best institutions and the most interesting solutions of the past year, in the following categories:

BEST BANK – Alior Bank

THE MOST INTERESTING INNOVATION FOR THE BANK –

Google for the Android Pay application

THE MOST INNOVATIVE BANK – mBank

THE MOST FRIENDLY BANK – ING Bank Śląski

BEST INSURANCE COMPANY – ERGO Hestia

THE MOST INTERESTING INNOVATION FOR

INSURANCE – Atena for IT Platform for SPACE Insurances

THE MOST FRIENDLY INSURER – Ubezpieczenia Pocztowe

THE BEST DIGITAL INSURER – Compensa

SPECIAL AWARD FROM THE AWARD COMMITTEE –

Wojciech Kwaśniak

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Cultural Monitor

CM – May 2017

BRASS AND WOODWIND INSTRUMENTS! – THESE ARE THE HEROES OF THE MAY CULTURAL MONITOR. MACIEJ PROLIŃSKI RECOMMENDS THE ALBUMS. ”SINFONIA VARSOVIA BRASS” – WARNER – CD

One of the most outstanding Polish orchestras – Sinfonia Varsovia released the first album of its Sinfonia Varsovia Brass band. This is a thirteen-person brass ensemble with symphonic background, whose first performance at the Parade Square [Plac Defilad] during the "Sinfonia Varsovia to Its City" festival met with great enthusiasm of the audience. A few months after the concert full of successes, the ensemble recorded an energetic album being the compilation of classical, jazz and Latin American music. These pieces also refer to the roots of the best American big bands, but most of all, pieces which are well-known to the audience from the big screen, such as from the soundtrack to "Rocky" and "The Children of Sanchez" films. The forgotten tradition of jazz big bands, military orchestras in connection with the very well-tuned classical section of brass instruments - all this creates a world of sounds still unknown on our professional music stage. And finally, as a memento talking about where the musicians come from, the only but very beautiful accent from classical music: the "Nimrod" variation of Edward Elgar's ”Enigma Variations”!

ANDRZEJ KORZYŃSKI – ”MUZYKA Z FILMÓW ANDRZEJA WAJDY” [MUSIC FROM ANDRZEJ WAJDA'S FILMS] – SONY – CD

Andrzej Korzyński is one of the most popular Polish composers, fulfilling himself in both entertainment (song) and experimental music, as well as in film music. His works are currently undergoing renaissance in Berlin, Paris and London. He has written music for over 120 domestic and foreign film titles! Among them there are the images of outstanding film directors and films that have made the history of Polish cinema. He once said that he became a composer of film music because the only, the only thing which he lacked was melody ideas. He used to sit down and immediately know what to play ... Cooperation with master Andrzej Wajda resulted in titles such as: "Man of Iron", "Man of Marble", "Brzezina" and "Miss Nobody". On the album we find the fragments of Korzyński’s compositions to these titles. This music is always the art of emotion, which is difficult to break up with. Once it is the art of emotion, written for bowed string instruments, captivating and atmospheric. Once simply entertaining and airy (a bit of simply dance music set in the climate of the 70s song pop). But it is always melodious and transparent, clear art. I suspect that Korzyński has never claimed great pretensions to the incredible originality. But anyway, he succeeded "more than less" in both cases.

TOMASZ STAŃKO NEW YORK QUARTET – ”DECEMBER AVENUE” – ECM – CD

This is already the twelfth album, which the master of Polish jazz has recorded for the legendary German ECM record label as a leader. "Trumpeting freedom in spirit, thought and jazz", once wrote about Stańko The New York Times. So it is not appropriate to add too much to it. But with such a signature one could very precisely describe the way, and the discography and the collection of records, as well as countless concerts of one of the greatest ambassadors of our music. A versatile composer and trumpeter with great sensitivity, terrific intuition and so very own timbre. Stańko's New York Quartet is no longer a novelty, but it is growing at its own pace as each of our master’s band. Everything takes place at its own pace on this record. The pieces are developing slowly, themes appear late, the whole band seems to be warming up without hurry. The leader lets the musicians – drummer Gerald Cleaver, newcomer to the band, double bass player Reuben Rogers, and first of all David Virelles, who combines the precision of a classical pianist with the Cuban sense of rhythm – play. The musicians listen beautifully to each other here. With jazz is like with good poetry. Everything, or at least a lot, is contained "between" ...

”POLISH RADIO JAZZ ARCHIVES VOL. 28 - AIR CONDITION” – POLSKIE RADIO [POLISH RADIO]– CD

It is impossible to write the history of Polish jazz without mentioning the name of Zbigniew Namysłowski. The Polish Radio's record is an important publishing position, thanks to which we recall Namysłowski as an extremely versatile composer and saxophonist. The 28th album from the radio series presents a recording of his Air Condition formation from the Jazz Jamboree '83 festival. The concert was special because the Quintet of Namyslowski performed two days before the first memorable concert of Miles Davis. Another interesting fact was the composition of the quintet, in which, besides the leader playing the soprano and alto saxophone, also played: Wojciech Gogolewski – on the electric piano, Marek Bliziński – on the guitar, Jan Cichy – on the bass guitar, and Adam Lewandowski – on the drums. The splendid performance of Namysłowski's ensemble at the festival was not overshadowed by the sensational concert of Miles, which is still mentioned by the festival's visitors. The recording will appeal to jazz lovers, but also to jazz-rock ones, because here, in some places, we get stronger tunes, captivating everything what is most important also in this rock music: melody, simplicity, tension and true passion!

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Cultural Monitor

MATEUSZ POSPIESZALSKI – „TRALALA” – POLSKIE RADIO [POLISH RADIO] – CD Mateusz Pospieszalski's composition output is multilayered and colourful, so it is hard to find a category that would be so broadranging that it would be able to cover everything that has been born in his head for the last three decades. This time Mateo, best known for his absolutely unpredictable (instrumental and vocal) actions in the Voo Voo band, and the hits written for the Zakopower band, has constructed his own new jazz quintet, inviting young but already well known and respected instrumentalists to cooperate. Already making an international career Max Mucha plays the double bass. We can hear great young Berliner Moritz Baumgartner on drums. The core of the band is father and son, i.e. Mateusz and Marek Pospieszalski, who play the saxophone. And the leader and Barbara Pospieszalska sing. Everything is done again omitting the piano, eliminating the harmonic instrument which is typial for jazz. Nevertheless it is communicative. I would call this "something" the condensation of content - full of vigour, energy and vitality – in not a big space. After all, most of these songs are melodic, referring to the traditions of Polish off-jazz and to playful inspirations, "avant-garde hits."

”MAREK POSPIESZALSKI GRA PIOSENKI, KTÓRE ŚPIEWAŁ FRANK SINATRA” [MAREK POSPIESZALSKI PLAYS THE SONGS THAT FRANK SINATRA SANG] – MAREK POSPIESZALSKI – CD Marek Pospieszalski – a saxophonist and the pillar of Wojtek Mazolewski's quintet - with great instrumentalists (Elias Stemeseder - piano, Max Mucha - double bass Max Andrzejewski - drums) reminds us of Frank Sinatra's hits. However, this new look at Sinatra aims to highlight the artistic aspect of his work. In this avant-garde, yet deeply embedded in jazz tradition music, one can hear the struggle of passions and the collision of different energies. That is right; we have different personalities, temperaments and passions - structures, moods, temperatures and tempos. And at the same time, a fascinating mix - beautifully organically bound, perfectly thought-out and in addition with the record of incredible (and not given directly) emotions. This is yet another publishing position, thanks to which we are getting to know junior Pospieszalski as an artist of great sensitivity and of his own very strong tenor timbre. The artist who through himself, in an avant-garde way and without ornamentation, tells us about classical music today. And the fact that he released it himself just a moment ago makes him even the bigger spunky boy!

DYLAN.PL – „NIEPOTRZEBNA POGODYNKA ŻEBY ZNAĆ KIERUNEK WIATRU” [A WEATHER PRESENTER IS NOT NEEDED TO KNOW THE DIRECTION OF THE WIND] – AGORA – 2CD A publication containing Bob Dylan's pieces in the Polish translation of artist and journalist Filip Łobodziński, played by the band under his command. On the albums there are many well-known songs of the American singer, such as, among others, "Blowin' in the Wind", "The Times They Are a-Changin”, and "Like a Rolling Stone". While it is impossible to deny that Dylan's songs are a literary phenomenon of exceptional importance, finding good musical ideas (not too much ascetic and not too "rich") to develop his works is a challenge. And the biggest advantage of this album is probably reaching a balance between the word and the music. The Polish translations of Dylan's songs agree with his music here. Łobodziński's experience mixed with the band's musicality and invited guests (among them are: Tadeusz Woźniak, Muniek Staszczyk and Organek) gave a convincing effect. And all of it is in the "street-verandah" mood as neatly the band determines its style. A wise, cool, in many moments simply hit album, just to take care of.

MITCH & MITCH & KASSIN – "VISITANTES NORDESTINOS" – AGORA – CD After a year spent touring with popular Polish singer Zbigniew Wodecki, a young Polish big band led by Bartek Tyciński and Macio Moretti travelled to Brazil. There the band met legendary producer and musician Kassin cocreating the Orquestra Imperial, constantly cooperating with Brazilian and foreign stars. The result of the meeting is "Visitantes Nordestinos" and joint concerts. On the album I can hear a good bit of Brazilian music history, but I also can hear our Mitches. Youth, the naturally sounding riffs, the brass parts in these riffs, airy melodies, unpretentiousness and humour – it has always seemed to be the strength of this band. It is the same this time. For me it is the perfect position for the upcoming holidays and summer moments of relaxation. And somehow it is strangely associated with the Polish sea, not with some distant waters. The compositions and their modern club-like sound are sure to favour those who want to enjoy this music intelligently. 5-6/2017 polish market

Culture

PROF. MARIUSZ GRZEGORZEK, film and theatre director, Rector of the Leon Schiller National Higher School of Film, Television and Theatre (PWSFTviT) in Łódź, talks to Maciej Proliński.

HERE REALLY "SPARKS ARE FLYING UP". HERE NO ONE PRETENDS TO BE THE MASTER. 74 polish market

The history of PWSFTviT in Łódź (Łódź Film School) - one of the world's oldest higher schools of film, which is to celebrate its 70th anniversary next year, shows that culture and science have always been Polish priorities. Also when our statehood was very crippled indeed... In your opinion, are culture and science as important for the government now as they deserve to be? Polish art and professional cinema needs a college educating filmmakers – artists and cinema theorists identified this need and so created our school after World War II. But let's remember that the school was established in a way by accident. Warsaw was destroyed, so it was done for entirely pragmatic reasons. And this is the history. On the other hand, one has to look at the question you have asked me from two perspectives. By throwing aside all these Polish complaints and objective problems which we are struggling with, I must say that we have a wonderful school. I mean both the substantive level and the state of all the material fabric, such as the technical equipment, which is vital for such a complex medium as film is. And we operate thanks to state patronage. The main host of the university is the Ministry of Science and Higher Education. The Ministry of Culture and National Heritage also plays an important role, not only financially, but also in the exchange of remarks and, in general, when it comes to the special character the artistic school as an institution. When I talk to colleagues from other countries, they are very impressed with how good the conditions are here. All the students do a great number of practical exercises at very different levels of difficulty - from simple workshops to graduation films shot in professional settings. They make them without incurring any cost. And this is an immanent element of the teaching process – the transfer of knowledge into practice in fairly secure, focus-friendly conditions. Some say that it is a system making the students lazy. I would argue with this. It is exactly at this stage that our students learn the secrets of film art; it is an important thing to provide them with some peace and comfort so they can put their energy into another field, asking who I am, what I would like to do, how the character of my writing is supposed to look like? PM

"Humanities is an inexhaustible source of creativity", Minister of Science and Higher Education Jarosław Gowin declared at the start of his term in office, emphasizing the role of humanities research in the policy of innovation. Does the reform of higher education affect the School of Film to some extent?

Culture Politicians have the ability to say things that sound quite right, but the basic question is how many reassuring declarations will become a fact? In Poland we have 19 state-run arts universities and there is our, the only one in this group that is a bit of a weird creature that, indeed, does not fit in with the rest of the schools. Everything we do here is unique - Film and TV Direction Department, Direction of Photography and TV Production Department, Film Art Organization Department and Acting Department. We always had a problem with communicating with the Ministry of Science and Higher Education. Not because there was ill will. Just because we were "such a tiny addition" to the entire typhoon of problems which the ministry had to deal with. The problems of all these behemoths - universities, polytechnics, educational institutions, which were "states in the state". Today I also have to admit that I do not really believe that the ministry will find enough energy to focus on arts education in all the rush of affairs. It is enough that it understands the sense and the need for the existance of such schools as ours, and that it supports them at the level of common-sense grants. In our film discipline I have always been more interested in targeted real help, such as the creation of the Polish Film Institute (PISF) and it is at the highest European level. This is something concrete. With all the miseries of funding culture, it is thanks to the Institute and the Act on cinematography of 2005 that today it is possible to produce several dozen films every year. Today, however, we feel threatened by the deconstruction of this system. Although the Minister of Culture was always a kind of benevolent guardian under whose auspices this system was functioning, it is worrying today that the present Ministry has new ideas, it wants to have substantial resources granted outside the standard procedures ... The level of culture of each of us greatly facilitates confrontation with the challenges of the present, it allows us to understand the complexity of the world that surrounds us, it enables us to make the right diagnoses necessary for the correct formulation of the goals which we want to reach. A cultural man - and after all not only an artist, - works more efficiently and more precisely, lives wiser. Well, yes, but this need, "has been building up in us" from a very early age ... And in Poland, I have an impression, it is not being built up, but still apparently neglected... Why? It is a fact. In some suicidal way, we, Poles, have cut off from culture as the most important factor shaping the human being. People often mistakenly and mechanically think that culture is an elegant addition to life... But it is life

in itself, part of the bloodstream of every person whether he/she wants it or not. What kind of people we are, how much we are able to love, how much of life wisdom we have – it depends exclusively on discovering the deepest, sensitive levels in oneself. And here the language that opens this communication - and at every level - is always culture. In addition to an artistic code, or just craft, a profession, which are solely tools, it is based on primitive instincts. It causes that we are spiritual beings, not wild animals. This primordial level is in each of us. Suppressing it causes that people are losing the basic "radar" without which life is complicated and difficult. I come from a small town - from Cieszyn. And if it had not been for my elementary school where I had music and arts education, where I had poetry reciting, theatre and arts clubs, I would have had no possibility of awakening my natural predispositions at the right time. As there is some kind of strange consent that all this is not supposed to be present from an early age, we set ourselves the worst self-destructive goals in society that "life is to depend on compliant vegetation as a slave, that a man is to take a loan at a bank to buy a concrete cage, and pay it off for the rest his or her life and not to rebel drinking alcohol, smoking cigarettes and absorbing fat and sugar”... Today we have two "cancers in culture"- the first one is easy to diagnose - pauperization. The second, equally dangerous, trend is that there are some people, called experts, who reportedly have access to the "key to interpretation" of high culture, to what is "good and what is not". So "pseudoelites" are formed, which is especially easy to notice in the Polish theatre, circles which "decree culture" in the media. On the other hand, if one looked at all these "fashion works and little works" in a more penetrating and bolder way, it is often a total hutzpa, devoid of sense and natural energy exchange.

The Łódź Film School is one of the most important showcases of Polish culture and Łódź. Among its first students were Andrzej Munk and Andrzej Wajda, the first lecturers - Jerzy Bossak and Jerzy Toeplitz. The school has educated cinema giants, among which are Roman Polański, Zbigniew Rybczyński, Krzysztof Kieślowski, Witold Sobociński, Sławomir Idziak, Pawel Edelman – the laureates of Oscars and prizes at the festivals in Cannes, Berlin and Venice. When one comes here, one simply feels respect and delight ... Where do you think the legend of this School comes from? Our school became something of a modern art laboratory at the very beginning. It was here where music, literature and painting were developing around the activities directly PM

connected with the film and the theatre itself. The successes of this period are also surely the fruit of the atmosphere and curriculum created by the then rector of the school - Jerzy Toeplitz. These were different times, different energy, different needs, a different generation, and this all resulted in a kind of phenomenon, which, as it is what happens with phenomena, is not known where it came from, and which left its mark on the whole Polish cinematography. But I am not very keen on this demonization of the past (especially Oscars, Cannes, etc.), because it is like a delicate suggestion that it is not worth talking about what is happening now in Polish film. And today? We always live in a certain context, and today the approach to filmmaking art has changed a lot. When I was at the start of my career, that is in the 1980s, the approach to the cinema was pure and good-natured. The cinema was ruled by clear rules – when something was good, it made it somehow. Today, the film has become quite a wholly commercial marketing object... Paradoxically, this is not just about commercial films. The "normal audience", which itself would look for the cinema, is disappearing. We are immersing ourselves in the Internet, multimedia, new distribution platforms. One could say that our school's curriculum should be reformed... However, our conviction is that one should strongly defend the approach to film as high art. Few schools teach filmmaking craft just like ours. But the most important question is: for what purpose are we to use this craft? For whom? It is still important that the school bets on a sincere, uncompromising contact between students and lecturers. This is the place where really "sparks are flying up", no one here pretends to be the master. The exchange process is buzzing in some kind of a melting pot, a wellunderstood fight. We strive to act most substantively and profoundly at the level of human intentions to appeal to the ethos of art as a profound discussion. It has always been like that. PM

In the last two years the Film School has been ranked among the top 15 schools of film in the world by the American magazine, "The Hollywood Reporter". It is certainly a reason for pride, but also and obligation... These different rankings are definitely a result of this, and not another, school vision. We are not just consuming that legend of the 1950s and 60s. Today we are present at all short film festivals, from these dedicated to film schools to Venice, Cannes and students' Oscars. And young people are watching these films and asking: where such a film could have been produced? What is this strange place of Łódź? In the PM

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Culture curriculum we have always been emphasizing the practical side. Our Polish and foreign students learn from school graduates who come back to us after their professional successes to work as lecturers. The academic community has appreciated your work and re-elected you for the 20162020 rector's term and entrusted the management of the school to you. What are the most important challenges that the Film School is facing today? After the first term I learned that setting myself too ambitious goals is a mistake. A man struggles with these goals, we reach them or (more often) not, but somewhere too much energy is burnt out. My main goal is to maintain the level of this school, and also the creative tension prevailing here, to maintain the current production, to have the best lecturers and students. I wish that our films had the energy, that they were ”well taken care of." And here we deal with a "team sport", which requires: communication skills, that is the ability to precisely explain their intentions and the ability to enforce everything that comes to mind, that is also some leadership skills. Of course, all art schools are elite schools. There are several students per one professor here. For example, we have 11 persons per year at the Direction Department. PM

MY MAIN GOAL IS TO MAINTAIN THE LEVEL OF THIS SCHOOL, AND ALSO THE CREATIVE TENSION PREVAILING HERE, TO MAINTAIN THE CURRENT PRODUCTION, TO HAVE THE BEST LECTURERS AND STUDENTS.

If one person from this class becomes known as a fulfilled film director, this is really good. PM

With this school, as a student and as a lecturer, you have been connected for over three decades, initially as a student and an assistant to Prof. Wojciech Jerzy Has. And

because Has is in the top five most important artists of "inter-world" cinema for me (there are also: Chaplin, Fellini, Tarkovsky and Kim Ki-duk) it is impossible for me not to ask you how you have remembered him? What did meeting Has give you? Has was a very charismatic, focused personality, but he was a man of few words. What was the relationship between us all about? About chemistry, I immediately realized that we were made from the same mould. As a student at school I would do strange things that did not match what was happening here, such as the ”Krakatau” school etude. And Has used to allow me to do such things when he was my tutor. Paradoxically, the most important feature of Has, with all his well-established common sense and distance that he would be building, was certain impudence. If someone felt like doing "something more, something else", one had his support. For a student, at that time it was very important permission. In this sense, I owe much to Has. In our lives, from a kindergarten, we meet people who "know" ... And they instil their knowledge in points into us. So if at meetings between people we happen to hear from an older person, the authority: if you feel that it may be otherwise - try it! You will see what will come out of it ..."- that is already a lot, it • is really a lot.

ARGENTINE NIGHT A concert entitled “Argentine Night” was held in the National Philharmonic in Warsaw on March 27 in the runup to the 10th Akademia Gitary (Guitar Academy) festival. The most outstanding compositions by Astor Piazzolla – including “The Four Seasons,” “Libertango” and “Oblivion” - were performed by Marcin Wyrostek on accordion, Łukasz Kuropaczewski on guitar and Aukso Orchestra under Marek Moś. Maciej Proliński

wo outstanding Polish musicians, accompanied by an orchestra, played on that day Piazzolla’s emotional music, which is part of the national heritage of Argentina. They also announced in an intriguing manner the 10th Guitar Academy festival, which will be held in the Wielkopolska region from August 11 to September 10, 2017. “The Academy is an initiative strengthening the Polish school of classical - and not only classical - guitar on the basis of international cultural and academic cooperation,” says Przemysław Kieliszewski, head of the festival’s Programme Committee and director of the Music Theatre in Poznań since 2013. “We try to ensure that every year the festival discovers and promotes new, unusual places in the region – concert halls, small manor houses, churches, synagogues and farms whose charm creates the atmosphere of the

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concerts. We organize a few dozen events and each time they turn Wielkopolska for a month into the real capital of the six strings.” From classical music to flamenco to alternative music – these three interesting and different worlds define the programme of the festival. Details of this year’s programme are not known yet. Six individual lessons with eminent tutors, like for example Marco Tamayo, Andrea de Vitis and Pablo Marquez, will be given as part of the Masterclass. As usual, there will be the Guitar Flashmob – every year several hundred guitar lovers gather in the Old Town Market Square in Poznań on the last Sunday of August and play together. Concerts by Łukasz Kuropaczewski, artistic director of the Guitar Academy and one of the most outstanding classical guitarists, and Krzysztof Zalewski, a rising star of Polish guitar pop music, are also planned. •

Culture

THE MOST FAMOUS BALLET IN A NEW VERSION On 20 May, 2017 at the Teatr Wielki - Polish National Opera in Warsaw there is the premiere of "Swan Lake" – the most famous and appreciated work in the whole history of classical dance. After numerous stage productions of the traditional version of "Swan Lake" on the Warsaw stage, Krzysztof Pastor, director of the Polish National Ballet, with librettist Paweł Chynowski decided to once again confront it, however, to transfer this story to the realities of the tsar's court in the last years of Pyotr Tchaikovsky's life.

he premiere of this famous ballet took place in 1877 and although today it is unimaginable, the event was far from being successful. It was only in 1894 when this brilliant composition of Pyotr Tchaikovsky gained a suitable setting, thanks to the extraordinary choreography of Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov. These wonderful artists are still considered to be the "architects" of the world success of "Swan Lake", and their dance arrangements are still touching and thrilling. "Swan Lake" has invariably what is in the classical ballet the most beautiful: wonderful music, subtle lyricism and romanticism. "Our audience knows perfectly this German ballet fairy tale with Tchaikovsky's music about Prince Siegfried and his dilemma between love for Odette turned into a swan and her fiery opposite Odile who is thrown into his arms by a sly wizard. After numerous stage productions of the traditional version on the Warsaw stage, Krzysztof Pastor with librettist Paweł Chynowski decided to move this story to the realities of the tsar's court in the last years of Pyotr Tchaikovsky's life. Respecting the spirit of the romantic original version, they reached out to the Polish motifs of the authentic story that had happened to the heir to the Russian throne, Nicholas. The Tsarevich, who had been faithful four years to his youthful love for Princess Alix of Hesse,

Maciej Proliński but not accepted by Tsar Alexander III, met thanks to his father, and fell in love with Polish ballerina Matylda Krzesińska. This passion took hold of his heart and led to a loud social scandal in the Saint Petersburg court on the threshold of succeeding to the throne by Nicholas II. Despite the changed libretto, the most valuable 'swans', the sequences of the academic choreography of Lev Ivanov and Marius Petipa, will be preserved in the performance", says Waldemar Dąbrowski, director of the National Opera. After the success of the "Casanova in Warsaw" ballet in the choreography by Krzysztof Pastor with the libretto by Paweł Chynowski, it is time for another innovative performance performed by the Polish National Ballet. Also Krzysztof Pastor is announcing that it is to be a classic ballet, but with a completely new libretto. What led the librettist to create a story different from the Saint Petersburg original version? "We want it to be a performance in the classic convention in which the most valuable sequences of the academic choreography will appear, but we will offer another libretto. Personally, I always believed that Tchaikovsky's music is far more narratively and emotionally capacious than the banal love story of a duke-sissy to an enchanted princess, which is essentially a carbon copy of dozens of this kind of fairy tales duplicated

by ballet librettists of the nineteenth century. Of course, love and betrayal or the struggle between good and evil are universal themes, and they even break out of fairy tales. But ... In recent years, this ballet has been staged in Warsaw already six times in traditional Russian choreographic versions. However, today dozens of performances of such 'Swan Lake' in excellent renditions can be easily found and viewed on DVDs or youtube, so it does not make sense to compete with them to offer the audience just another copy of them. And one more thing: for many years there was no creative choreographer in Poland who would dare to break the persisting repetitive scheme of duplication of these worn patterns. Today we have him – this is Krzysztof Pastor, whose great and varied choreographic experience authorizes him to tempt for the original interpretation of this popular title. Such risk has already been taken successfully by: John Neumeier in Hamburg, Mats Ek in Stockholm and Matthew Bourne in London. It is more ambitious than the realization of yet another replica of the traditional 'Lake'. So I thought it was worth leaving the fairytale libretto once more and translating it into the authentic story that happened in Saint Petersburg shortly before Tchaikovsky's death. The story that is even more interesting for us because of the Polish motif”, says Paweł • Chynowski. 5-6/2017 polish market

Culture

BEAUTY Photo. Piotr Trybalski – www.Trybalski.com

STILL WORTH GETTING TO KNOW

The Office of the Counsellor for Culture and Information of the Turkish Embassy, as part of the lecture series "Six Centuries of Polish-Turkish Relations" organized by the Royal Castle in Warsaw, presents the photographic exhibition "Turkey. Around the Lycian Way". The exhibition is to be watched until 30 May, 2017 in the courtyard of the Copper-Roof Palace. The author of the photohraphs is Piotr Trybalski, a well-known Polish traveller, photographer and journalist. Maciej Proliński

he photographs depict the beauty of the Lycian Way - one of the longdistance mountain trails in Turkey. It leads through the Taurus mountains along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea from Fethiye to Antalya around ancient Lycia. The route stretches over 500 kilometers over the southern coastline of Turkey, leading through hundreds of important places especially for archeology lovers. Among them there are: an aqueduct in Delikkemer, tombs in Myra and eternal flames of Chimera. And these are just some of the timeless attractions of this region. This trail is not only a paradise for archaeologists. It is also an area full of challenges for fans of active leisure. Visitors of this region will be able to fly a paraglider from Baba Dagi Mountain, to try their hand at climbing in Geyikbayırı, and also at rafting on the Köprülü river. The thirsty for rest will find it in the Butterfly Bay cut off from civilization, bathing in the turquoise waters of Kaputas Beach, or strolling along the Antalya city beach. The author himself does speak about the uniqueness of the Lycian Way in his own words: "According to the stereotypes of Turkey

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that are popular among tourists, one goes there to lie down at the seaside, or perhaps to see some ruins, because there are oodles of ancient artifacts. But the Mediterranean coast between Fethiye and Antalya, where the Lycian Way stretches for 540 km, offers much more. Of course the beaches are amazing here - even the unique, cut off from the civilization, Butterfly Bay, but there are also plenty of possibilities of spending time actively. The south coast of Turkey is not just about hotels, pools and beaches. I travel bypassing such places. I try to reach places where, apart from lazing over the water, you can do more - that is get tired. It turned out that the Lycian Way is ideal for this. If I were also planning a family trip to Turkey, I would go right there between Fethiye and Antalya. Here you can combine various 'holiday business' – to lie on the beach, to take a bath in the warm sea, to fly a footlaunched powered hang glider, to climb the rocks, to hike the trails or to go rafting down the rivers. What is more, to commune with the fascinating history of Lycia". The author of the photographs has been travelling and photographing for almost twenty years, publishing among others in "National

Geographic" and "National Geographic Traveler". In addition, he is the winner of the ”Travel Photographer of the Year 2014” title, laureate and finalist of the competitions: Grand Press Photo, National Geographic Great Photo Contest, Outdoor Photographer of the Year. He is also the author of the bestselling guide "Fotograf w Podróży" [Travelling Photographer]. He feels good wherever something interesting happens. He is faithful to the places that he visits. He has reached Nepal by road, travelled around India, rushed by minibus through the Pakistani desert, greeted the king of a village in the Madagascar province and bowed to the Mount of the Mountains. He let himself steal his shoes in the Turkish mosque and let shave his head in the village of lepers, he was flying aimlessly over the jungle of the Orinoco River basin. He co-organized expeditions including: "Strzelecki Traces Expedition 2004" to Australia, "Total Sun Eclipse 2001" to Madagascar, "Tepui 2003" to Venezuela, "R1 Himalaya Expedition 2000" to Nepal. In 2009, along with Beata Pawlikowska and Monika Witkowska, he also appeared in the programme "Dzień Dobry TVN", telling about the strangest dishes of the world. •

Culture

WHEN MASTERS PASS AWAY - WE SING SONGS... March 15 saw the death at the age of 76 of bard and director Wojciech Młynarski, known as the poet of the Polish chanson. His songs were hummed by all Poles. His cheeky 1960s megahit “We’re on holiday” was the most popular. But Młynarski’s lyrics were also about serious stuff – God, love and hope. I appreciated both his serious side and irreverent humour, a duality without contradictions. An artist’s sense of humour combined with thoughtfulness can lead to great things. And that was precisely what made the master songwriter’s work so unique. After all, that’s what you expect of a master, don’t you? Maciej Proliński

o a certain extent, all of Młynarski’s songs formed a personal memoir, in which he described the things that caught his eye, but which also became part of a magic reality. For some, his memoir was full of appealing pictures painted by the artist. Others cherished it for the love and humour that radiate from it. Yet the master always remained the same with his constant, obsessively personal, perfect form. He had an ear for the lofty and the vernacular and tackled universal themes always deeply rooted in Polish realities. His poetry still shines with many colours, starting with the affirmation of being to the sense of the inevitable passing of time. The notes of nostalgia are tinged with love. There is also no shortage of political satire or sending up the less glorious national traits. In 1963, as a graduate of Polish Studies at the University of Warsaw, he decided to become a professional actor and singer. He made his debut in the early 1960s on the cabaret and theatre stage at the cult Hybrydy student club. In 1964 he was already the winner of two top awards at the Polish Song Contest in Opole. “My fondest memories are of the festival’s beginnings in the 1960s and 70s, when I was often the winner,” he said in one of his interviews. Since the mid-1960s he also worked with the Dudek cabaret ensemble. “One of my masters was composer Jerzy Wasowski, who was known as a charming, yet very strict man when it came to art,” he recalled. “When I gave him my lyrics, he often ripped them

apart, telling me to do a rewrite. Over the ten years of working with him at the Dudek cabaret I learned how to be sparing with words,” he said. In the 1970s he started writing larger works, especially opera and musical librettos. Młynarski also came up with a new genre: he became a singing columnist. The bleak reality of the mid-1980s was reflected in his famous production “Let’s Do Our Own Thing”. Its motto was the artist’s belief that “when the going gets tough, you need to redouble your effort.” For this production in 1985 he won the underground Solidarity Culture Award, which he held in great esteem. In 2008 he was honoured by the Polish Culture Foundation with the Gold Sceptre award for “uniquely valuable singing career, which has shaped the aesthetic and ethical sensitivity of several generations of Poles.” In 2011 he received a special Gold Frederic award for lifetime achievement. “I’m happy that such good music goes with his lyrics. I haven’t met anyone who didn’t know him and who wouldn’t believe that he was an artist hugely important for Polish culture. He has street cred. Respect, man,” linguist Professor Jerzy Bralczyk wrote in his preface to Wojciech Młynarski’s book “From One Breath to Another” published a couple of weeks before the artist’s death. “Perfection in the use of language finds expression in a gift of conveying a thought in any register. Linguistic empathy is the ability to grasp all possible contexts and undertones in somebody

else’s writing, which can offer the best pretext for your own lyrics. In this country nobody would give Bob Dylan a Nobel prize (to venture into the realm of phonaesthetics, which is tempting). But we know songs which can exist without music, which you then sing to your own tune. If such well-conceived concepts are dressed up in a fine linguistic form or deconstructed, they give you additional aesthetic pleasure. We experience brief moments of joy or even happiness. In their company we can feel as if they have reached the essence of our being,” Professor Bralczyk wrote. If there is anything to add to that, I can only say that I will remember Młynarski as an artist who never succumbed to the prevailing tastes of Polish audiences. What guided him in his work was always his inner sense of what was right and honest, and the engaging manner in which he did what he did. Apart from dozens, or hundreds of cheerful, neat and amusing songs, I will always remember those few songs that were far less cheerful, in fact very serious, like “High Stakes” written for Ewa Bem (to the music by Jerzy Wasowski), “Open the Door” (about God praying to Man) written for Stanisława Celińska (to the music by Maciej Muraszko and Anna Liv), the artist’s creed “The Intelligentsia, Don’t Back Down” (to the music by Jerzy “Duduś” Matuszkiewicz) and “Grey Christmas Carol”, whose music is one of the most enchanting, if little known, numbers by composer Krzysztof Komeda. • 5-6/2017 polish market

Culture

DESIGN FROM POLAND

GOOD DESIGN! The year 2017 is a period of the intensive promotion of Polish design, which has been steadily developing and conquering the world. The international situation is definitely conducive to the development of Polish design. There are more and more festivals, exhibitions and fairs. And the Polish design community has started to take an active part in these events, achieving successes increasingly often. At present, having quite a large base – of schools, students and people educated in this field – it is natural that we participate in these global cultural phenomena. The Adam Mickiewicz Institute, operating under the brand Culture.pl, has begun the year with important design exhibitions in London, Stockholm and Reykjavik. In the next months, Polish design will be shown in the world’s design capitals: Milan, London, Vilnius, Seoul and other cities. The large-scale global promotion of Polish design is one of the operational priorities of the Adam Mickiewicz Institute. Design serves as a platform for presenting contemporary Polish culture and promoting Polish creativity. The key to success is fruitful cooperation with reputable partners: Ventura Lambrate (Milan), Paris Design Week and London Design Festival. Maciej Proliński

his year, exhibitions prepared as part of the programme run by the Adam Mickiewicz Institute to promote Polish design abroad will be shown, as usual, in the world’s design capitals. Regular presence in places of key importance for brandbuilding, sharing experience and establishing relations will make it possible to strengthen the international position of Polish design. This year, the programme of promoting Polish design abroad has been expanded to include fashion, which is an important field of design. Multiple measures are taken: from participation in the most important fashion events, like for example London Fashion Week, to inspiring and supporting cooperation between individual designers, like Polish designer Agnieszka Bar and Lithuanian designer Julija Janulaityte. An important part of the strategy is broadening the programme “Let’s Exhibit!” by fashion designers. Since 2017 they can apply for funding from the Institute for their presentations at foreign design events. The programme enjoys growing popularity. Last year, 18 individual designers and groups of designers were selected in an open competition from among over 60 applications. Their projects were on display at London Design Festival, Paris Design Week, Tranoï Femme in Paris, Milan Design Week,

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WantedDesign in New York, Tokyo Design Week and other events. The year 2017 started with the success of the exhibition “Waste Not” at International Fashion Showcase during London Fashion Week. The exhibition presented designs of students and graduates of School of Form. The curators of the exhibition Agnieszka JacobsonCielecka and Wojciech Dziedzic won the International Fashion Showcase Curation Award. The jury composed of 18 experts - international curators, media people, institutions and universities – assessed presentations from 26 countries, including the Czech Republic, Taiwan, India, Austria, Egypt, Korea and Poland. “Waste Not” attracted the attention of the jury because it consistently matched the theme of the festival “Local/Global” and because the choice of materials used to build the exhibition was coherent with its message. In March, for the second time, Polish design was present in Reykjavik at DesignMarch, one of the most important design events in northern Europe. DesignMarch enjoys very great interest from the public, both Icelandic and international, with the number of visitors growing every year. The exhibition “Polish Design. Tomorrow is Today” took place in Milan on April 4-9, 2017 at Salone del Mobile, the world’s most important

design event. The exhibition, held as part of Superdesign Show in Superstudio Più, presented design departments of Polish fine arts universities through the prism of the geographic context unique to each of the schools, natural resources of the region, regional traditions and history. Eight Polish fine arts universities – the Academy of Fine Arts in Gdańsk, Academy of Fine Arts in Katowice, Jan Matejko Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków, Strzemiński Academy of Art in Łódź, University of Arts in Poznań, Academy of Art in Szczecin, Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw and Eugeniusz Geppert Academy of Art and Design in Wrocław - took part in the exhibition. The curator was Dorota Koziara, a graduate of the Fine Arts University in Poznań, Polish designer with her own studio in Milan and curator of many exhibitions. The exhibition was not only a cross-sectional presentation. What set it apart from other exhibitions was that it showed the results of the students’ work in the context of individual schools. An important part of the exhibition was a multimedia presentation of the Polish system of art schools. In Poland, one can study design mainly at fine arts academies, which have the status of universities and offer three types of degrees: bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral. The schools also award honorary doctor’s titles to outstanding personalities

Culture

from the world of culture, art and design. One of such people is Alessandro Mendini, who has received the title from the Eugeniusz Geppert Academy of Fine Arts in Wrocław. In May, Polish design is presented in Seoul at Seoul International Handmade Fair. The exhibition “It’s a Polish Thing. New Design from Polska” is an attempt to confront the image of Poland, which is recognized in the world as one of the largest producers of furniture and furnishing products, but often known more because of the products’ quantity and availability rather than quality. The organizer of the exhibition is the Adam Mickiewicz Institute and the curator is Agnieszka Jacobson-Cielecka. The objects shown at the exhibition were made by 20 designers born in the 1980s. The curator says: “The generation of designers born in the 1980s acts very consciously. They work for large corporations, producers of furniture, textiles and ceramics not only on the domestic market, but also in Europe and Asia. Those who do not want to design for industry conduct their own activity on a scale which meets their needs and temperament. They not only can design and make objects, but also invent a brand, its strategy and distribution. Others rediscover the forgotten icons of Polish 20th-century design. They carefully select materials, observe the environment and are inspired by nature. This is clearly visible in the objects we present at the exhibition: a lot of wood, glass, ceramics, linen and cotton. These are everyday objects: modest, practical, decorative – ones that you will not find boring too soon. And that is good because they are made from natural materials, which will serve their users for a long time, or from recycled materials, which we like using because we think that [by doing so] we take care of the natural environment. Nice, hand-made objects make us think of those who made them. Who made them? What is it? Where do they come from? It is a Polish thing. New design from Polska. Over the past decade or so we have not only educated a generation of young, talented and resourceful artists, but also learnt to appreciate our own history and draw on its resources.” The 56 objects show three important aspects of Polish design. One speaks about nature as an inspiration and material for simple living, the second one draws on art and handicraft, giving a personal touch to the objects, and the third one cites recent history – the design of the 1950s and 1960s. All the exhibits are everyday objects: porcelain and glass dishes, lamps made from paper, recycled materials and wood, decorative textiles and toys. Designed by various artists, the objects share the simplicity of form, choice of material, bright colours and a sense of humour. The venue for the exhibition is Dongdaemun Design Plaza (DDP), a design centre opened in Seoul in 2014. DDP is the most important institution in Korea for presenting design and an incubator for young Korean designers. With its attractive location in the

centre of Seoul, modern architecture and interesting exhibitions and concerts, it attracted more than 8.5 million visitors in the first year after its opening alone. In May, Polish design will also be present in Lithuania at Design Week Lithuania where five Polish exhibitions prepared in conjunction with the Polish Institute in Vilnius will be shown. Additionally, the exhibition Graduation Projects 2016, was on at the Zamek Cieszyn design centre from February to April. It featured graduation projects of students of design

departments of universities in Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary. The works had been selected by an international jury in two categories: graphic design and industrial design. For many of the young designers the exhibition was the first major presentation of their design skills. For the visitors it was an opportunity to see what young designers are interested in. In autumn, Polish design will return to London, Sao Paulo and Dutch Design Week in Ein• dhoven. 5-6/2017 polish market

Culture

LEARN MORE ABOUT

VOLUNTEERING!

ven 20 years ago, concepts such as "volunteering" or "civil society" were just entering the Polish consciousness. And volunteering should always be a complement to the state. Today volunteering is doing well in Poland. People are aware of its need and importance, they are open to it. There is no serious non-governmental organization, known in the world that would not have its office in Poland today. The only thing we can complain of is that the tools for providing formal knowledge on volunteering to a significant part of our citizens are too modest. Polish school still does not speak much about NGOs. The National Public Benefit Organizations Register (KROPP) - a non-profit organization dedicated to bringing the issues of charity and philanthropy in modern civil society closer to citizens - is set to become such a new and much needed tool to build knowledge on this topic. It will make its debut in mid-2017! The project's ambassador is Dariusz Kordek – a well-known Polish actor, culture manager and theatre producer. KROPP is to be a pioneer in informing the public about these issues on the Polish market. Its information platform will be the www.ekropp.pl portal, which will be launched in the second half of 2017. The initiative already made its public debut at the Welconomy Economic Forum in Toruń in March 2017. What became an event among the topics of the Forum was a conference highlighting the importance and development strategy of the 3rd sector non-governmental institution in relation to

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cooperation with public administration and business. The debate, launched on the initiative of the National Public Benefit Organizations Register, was the inauguration of its activity carrying out the mission of shaping the awareness of civil society by promoting the idea of conscious charity and volunteering. The promised debut of the KROPP portal received particular approval and recognition, among the authorities of the Supreme Audit Office (NIK), the Ministry of Economic Development and the Ministry of Digitization. The panel discussion "Public Benefit Organizations - a Strategic Tool for the Transformation of the Non-Governmental Area" enjoyed enormous interest among social organizations, foundations, associations and many private individuals. Its moderator was Dariusz Kordek. The speakers were: Krzysztof Kwiatkowski, appointed by the President of NIK, Barbara Antkiewicz, Director of the NIK Delegation in Bydgoszcz, Tomasz Pietrala, President of the National Public Benefit Organizations Register, Bartosz Węglarczyk, Programme Director of the onet.pl portal, appointed by Ombudsman Adam Bodnar, and Jarosław Zbieranek from the Ombudsman's office. The Internet project www.ekropp.pl is to become soon an independent opinion-forming platform of analytical character constituting a condensed compendium of knowledge on the 3rd sector. "I feel an ambassador of good cause, a good idea. I think this is a fantastic idea, because, both as a citizen, an actor and a theatre

producer, I'm really interested in this subject, and I feel that something fantastic will come out of it. Not only for us, but for the general public, says Dariusz Kordek. "To talk about it is to pragmatically be in favour of the future ... The portal will illustrate the quality, structure and implementation of the public benefit organizations' (OPP) mission in a substantive way, supporting and creating their credible image in the eyes of donors. Through an interactive tool of promotion and communication, we want to spread the idea of donating "1%", a donation to wellknown goals and volunteering. The overriding aim of the project is to increase the activity of civic attitudes and to reach out to all those entitled to receive help. The originator and initiator of the portal is KROPP President Tomasz Pietrala, who has infected with the idea a group of social officials, experts and state officials, bringing them together to implement this huge platform for citizens! Up to now, there was no place in Poland where one could quickly check, touch so to speak, all these organizations, see hard data, numbers, graphs, investigate whether the given organization is transparent. We do not want to judge anyone here, do rankings, we give this opportunity to the users. We use the official data of the Ministry of Family, Labour and Social Policy. And this whole expert space is already being created by people of business, governmental organizations and the media, who will be our opinion-forming members”. •

Hannover Messe

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Events

POLAND HAS TO BUILD

COOPERATION FOUNDATIONS WHITHIN THE EU

or two days, on March 27 and 28, Kraków was Europe's capital of local goverment as the venue for the 3rd European Congress of Local Goverment. Nearly 1800 guests – regional leaders, representatives from state administration, scientific and business institutions, cultural and non-governmental organisations from over 40 countries - participated in the Congress. The theme of this year's meeting was: "Local Governments in the Face of the Challenges of the 21st Century". This Congress is one of the international conferences in Europe devoted to regional politics, cooperation between local governments, representatives of state administration, science and business. The programme of the 2-days Congress consisted of over 80 different events (thematic blocs, report presentations, panel sessions, workshops and lectures) divided into several theme paths: Business and Local Government, Finances, Economy, Innovations, Society, Environment, Tourism and Local Government. According to Zygmunt Berdychowski, President of the Programme Council of the

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Economic Forum, Founder of the Congress, local politicians have not only presented what they have gained but also complained about poor relations with the central administration. “Management, healthcare, culture or local government’s economic activity – these were the topics that have dominated the side meetings. I believe, that many of them [local politicians] have decided to attend the Congress to get to know how the other local politicians are solving those problems they have to face as well”, said Zygmunt Berdychowski. “We, the local politicians in Poland, have to build cooperation foundations whithin the EU. As for now, it is a prerogative of the central government”, said Jacek Majchrowski, Mayor of the City of Kraków, during the opening plenary session: “Global Changes Facing Europe and Local Governments in the 21st Century”. He pointed out that the local governments are for example not allowed to invite immigrants to settle in Polish cities and communes, which significantly limits them in enhancing the EU policies at the local level. Another guest, François Decoster, Chair of the Commission on Citizenship,

Governance, Institutional and External Affairs at the European Committee of the Regions (CoR) stated that the Committee of the Regions is a very complex, technical institution whose main goals are to support the economic development of the member states at the local level. “It is a kind of local voice on the EU stage which aims to bring EU decision-makers closer to the regional problems”, summed up François Decoster. “In Romania, most of the money from the Cohesion Fund for the financial period 20072013 was invested in infrastructure. In my city, effectiveness in this field reaches up to 90%,” said Emil Boc, former Prime Minister of Romania (2008-2012), currently Mayor of Cluj-Napoca. Ossi Savolainen, Regional Mayor of Helsinki-Uusimaa, briefly presented the concept of regional policy in Finland as a noncore EU member. “The administrative units in Finland are independent, although from the EU point of view, we are like a remote island,” said Savolainen. One of the most important guests taking part in the 3rd European Congress of Local

Events Governments was Anna Zalewska, Minister of Education, who delivered a speech on "Personnel Training for a Modern Economy. The Implementation of Education Reform". Minister Zalewska explained the aims and assumptions lying at the foundation of the recent educational reforms and their implications for local governments, providing examples of how the Ministry of Education takes into account the expectations and the input of local authorities. Considering the upcoming local elections in Poland in 2018, the presentations of the main Polish parties, on the local government’s future development, have attracted the interest of the Congress participants. According to Grzegorz Schetyna, the Chairman of the Civic Platform (PO) opposition party, local government in Poland is a symbol of great succsess, a kind of a milestone of Poland's transition towards democracy. However, there are still several elements in this system that might be improved to be more effective. “Local government is much faster than the central government”, stated Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz, the President of the Polish People’s Party (PSL), adding that PSL was in favour of decentralised local government in Poland. During the Congress much attention was devoted to the international cooperation of European cities and regions. According to Jean-Michel Berlemont, Deputy Mayor of Nancy, France, relationships often go beyond the near abroad. "We create partnerships with Brazil or Australia," said Mr Berlemont, while conceding that Nancy’s most important project is cross-border cooperation between France, Luxembourg, Germany and Belgium. Oleksandr Hanushchyn, Chairman of Lviv Regional Council, noted that each region is different, and cooperation priorities differ between Mexico and the USA, Poland and Slovakia, or Ukraine and Moldova. During the panel discussion “Intelligent Regions and Cities – from Vision to Strategy” Adam Hamryszczak, Polish deputy Minister of Economic Development, spoke about the importance of “social participation and submission of new solutions for evaluation by citizens”. He added that the Polish government intended to support regions, towns/cities, and above all their inhabitants, experts and innovators. According to Roman Ciepiela, mayor of Tarnów, this process is strongly associated with the level of local government and cannot be imposed from above. Jacek Krupa, Marshal of Malopolska Region, pointed out that the main objective of smart growth should be longterm improvement of the quality of life of residents. "Another aspect of smart development should be smart specialties," he stressed. The issues related to the interaction between business and government were not forgotten. Grzegorz Lot, Vice-President of Tauron Sprzedaż Sp. z o.o., drew attention to the fact that the introduction of the "Breathe The Air" programme requires a joint anti-smog initiative, education, involvement of residents, building proactive attitudes among local residents, gaining knowledge about the attitudes of local residents and their needs and motivations. Cooperation with local governments is the key here. How does national heritage shape the local community? George Alibegashvili, Chairman of the Tbilisi City Municipal Assembly, recalled that Georgia has always felt part of the West, as it resulted from the merger of cultures of ancient Greece, Rome and Israel. "However, we had a lot in common with Eastern cultures – Arabic, Turkish, or Persian, so for Tbilisi the concept of multiculturalism and tolerance is important," Alibegashvili stressed. The first day of the 3rd European Congress of Local Governments in Kraków ended with the Local Government Leader Gala. The title of the Village Mayor 2016 went to Grzegorz Niestrój, Mayor of Kornowac. The title of the Town Mayor 2016 went to Grzegorz Niezgoda, Mayor of Szczawnica. The title of City Mayor went to Piotr Grzymowicz, Mayor of Olsztyn. The Partner of the competition was the "Rzeczpospolita" daily. Additionally, the Jury decided to honour with a Special Award Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz who stressed that the “reform of

The Local Government Leader Gala

Anna Zalewska, Minister of Education

panel discussion local government is one of the best reforms conducted in Poland after 1989”, adding that “local authorities remain close to the problems of the local communities and therefore are respected and trusted by voters". • 5-6/2017 polish market

Events

LEADERSHIP, MANAGEMENT and INNOVATION The 5th edition of the "European Executive Forum", an international congress on leadership, management and innovation, was held in Warsaw in a April under the "Sustainable Leadership" slogan. The Honorary Patron of event was Minister of Science and Higher Education Jarosław Gowin. 61 outstanding experts and thinkers from Poland and abroad took part in six panel discussions. Once again, the prestigious "European Leadership Awards" statuettes were awarded to honour the best enterprises, managers and business leaders who distinguished themselves with involvement in their country's economic development. THE CHALLENGE OF POPULISM AND DISINTEGRATION OF EUROPE The first day of the session opened with speeches of foreign special guests. Guy Standing – Professor of the University of London, referred, among others, to today's notion of capitalism and the risk connected with it, while Professor Timothy Garton Ash of European Studies at Oxford University raised the issue of European disintegration and its historical determinants. During the plenary meeting, the speakers were debating the position of Europe in relation to the dynamic economies of Asia and America and the future of our capitalist model. ”Companies are withdrawing from the Asian markets for the European arena, which now guarantees better quality and higher competencies. Europe is beginning to create better investment conditions”, assessed Dorota HryniewieckaFirlej (Pfizer Polska).

A BRIDGE TO THE FUTURE .... A DRAWBRIDGE? Another point of the Congress was the speech of Pedro Videla (IESE Business School), who was speaking about the diversification of the level of industrialization, the process of globalization and technological progress. "We need reforms, greater flexibility, competitiveness and common fiscal frameworks to prevent another economic crisis", he said. An introduction to the next panel discussion was a presentation on the subject of digital transformation and the latest Orange projects such as the creation of a climate platform or electronic payments for motorways. Things that were regarded as science fiction only recently are a reality today - Bożena Leśniewska, Vice-President of the Management Board for the Business Market, Orange Polska was talking about it. The "Innovation - Drive to the Future" debate focused on the biggest challenges which innovative companies will have to face and key conditions for the success of breakthroughs. "Courage, diversity, curiosity and the fundamental question ”What if” should be the essence of innovation", Prof. Piotr

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Płoszajski (SGH) said, comparing innovations to a drawbridge that needs to be constantly built, and Maciej Markowski (Cushman & Wakefield), recalled the greatest innovation, that is a change in the culture of organizations, which companies used to be hierarchical and where control mattered.

ENTREPRENEURIAL ORGANIZATIONS, THAT IS HOW TO BREAK A NEW IDEA? The third panel discussion opened with a speech by Prof. Hermann Simon, an expert in the field of marketing and sales, thinker in the German language area, who focused on the concept of Globalia - the issues of growing globalization and its impact on national economies. The last discussion was devoted to the subject of entrepreneurial organizations, opportunities for start-ups in the market and the competitiveness of enterprises. PhD Krzysztof Mazur (Jagiellonian Club) stated that globalization generates social tensions and blocks innovation. Francois Colombie (Auchan Polska) had another opinion and was emphasizing that globalization gives a lot of benefits to new businesses and that this issue should not be considered in the context of division between the monopoly of global leaders and the unlikely prospects of companies starting to operate.

EUROPE AND THE REST OF THE WORLD The second day was started by former Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade of Ireland, Eamon Gilmore. In his speech he was talking about his experiences from the perspective of a political leader with more than 20 years of experience. Globalization, populism, oversimplification of the political message to a tweet are some of the challenges for politicians today. In the first panel discussion the subject of entering of European companies into the global arena was debated by: Adam Krzanowski (Nowy Styl Group), Prof. Zbigniew Dworzecki (SGH), Eamon Gilmore and Rafał Szczap (Xerox Polska) who emphasized that Polish entrepreneurs have

Events a problem of mental nature not paying any attention to the development of human resources and its resources. They all agreed that entrepreneurs need to deepen their knowledge and experience, and then decide to operate on foreign markets.

TECHNOLOGY VS PEOPLE ”Leadership must take into account future events and the skill of predictability”, Joseph Pistrui, Professor of Business Management at IE Business School, said in his presentation addressing the notion of fear in business and the ways to overcome it and how to deal with risk. In the second panel discussion entitled "New Models of Business in Times of Technological Revolution”, Professor Michał Kleiber stated that we are departing from the world standards in a terrible way - the reason would be the inability to work in groups and a lack of so-called culture of success and publicizing it. In the discussion he was accompanied by, among others, Tomasz Czechowicz (MCI Capital S.A.), who advanced a thesis that digitization should not be confused with innovation.

Discussion panel "How to Understand the World – Business in a Europe of Uncertainty”

A GOOD LEADER, SO WHAT KIND OF? The guests were given the opportunity to listen to the last panel discussion on open-model business management. Władysław Grochowski (Arche) emphasized that a good leader must properly select employees and Andrzej Szumowski (Wyborowa Pernod Ricard) said that the leader should be the person chosen by their employees, not by the decision of the supervisory board or of the general meeting.

“European Leadership Awards” Laureates

"EUROPEAN LEADERSHIP AWARDS" STATUETTES HANDED IN FOR THE SECOND TIME The highlight of the evening was the solemn gala of handing in the statuettes to the best enterprises, outstanding managers and business leaders who implement the highest standards of leadership. Eamon Gilmore – former Deputy Prime Minister, Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade of Ireland, who highlighted the key role of good leaders referring to the crisis in Ireland and to overcomng it, opened solemnly the ceremony. "A manager who comes to the restructuring process has two options: success or excuses," one of the laureates, Dariusz Krawczyk, Chairman of the Management Board of Polnord S.A. said while receiving the award in the category of Visionary CEO. •

Timothy Garton Ash – writer, Professor of European Studies at Oxford University

“EUROPEAN LEADERSHIP AWARDS” LAUREATES TOP INDUSTRY LEADER - Elavon Financial Services INNOVATION LEADER - Comarch S.A. INNOVATION LEADER - Tomasz Czechowicz – Managing

Partner, President of the Management Board, Chief Investment Officer, MCI Capital S.A. VISIONARY CEO - Dariusz Krawczyk - Chairman of the Management Board of Polnord S.A. GLOBAL SUCCESS LEADER - Wielton S.A. VISIONARY ENTREPRENEUR - Mikołaj Placek – President of the Management Board of the Oknoplast Group PERSONALITY OF THE YEAR – M.D., PhD. Dorota Hryniewiecka-Firlej – President of the Management Board of INFARMY

Mikołaj Placek - President of the Management Board of the Oknoplast Group, laureate of VISIONARY ENTREPRENEUR tittle

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24-25 May 2017 Warsaw

Leading Regional Technology Congress

Chris Skinner

Giovanni Butarelli European Data Protection Supervisor

Chief Technology Officer for Teradata Corporation

Founder and Owner of Markets and Money Advisory

James Felton Keith

Łukasz Wejchert

Guillaume de Colonges

Zbigniew Jagiełło

Writer, Fintech Commentator, The Finanser

Chairman, International Personal Data Trade Association

/ftcongress

Founder, Dirlango

@ftcongress

Stephen Brobst

CEO and General Director, Carrefour Poland

Lars Christensen

CEO, PKO BP

www.ftcongress.com

Ceną za wzrastającą mobilność są wyższe emisje do atmosfery. Jednakże, skoro ludzkość nie zwolni tempa w najbliższej przyszłości, chemia może pozwolić nam dotrzeć z punktu A do B, pozostawiając mniejszy ślad. Redukujemy wpływ samochodów na środowisko na wiele różnych sposobów, jak np. poprzez dodatki do paliwa, które obniżają emisje gazów, zwiększając tym samym jego wydajność. Produkujemy również materiały, które zwiększają pojemność energetyczną akumulatorów w samochodach elektrycznych, umożliwiając im lepsze konkurowanie z samochodami napędzanymi paliwami kopalnymi, aby mogły one stać się sposobem podróżowania mającym większą rację bytu. Kiedy lepsze wyniki oznaczają również mniejsze obciążenie dla środowiska, to dlatego, że w BASF tworzymy chemię. Jeżeli podzielasz naszą wizję, wejdź na stronę wecreatechemistry.com/automotive