WE SIMPLY HAVE TO
ENDURE Jacek Piechota, president of the Polish-Ukrainian Chamber of Commerce, former minister of the economy (2001-2003) and minister of the economy and labor (2005), talks with Witold Żygulski.
T
he war in Ukraine is affecting all areas of life in the CEE region, including economic exchange; what is the biggest problem in this area today for Poland as a direct neighbor of Ukraine, which is fighting the Russian invasion, and probably the country most involved in providing assistance? In the first place I would mention the problems of Polish companies which have invested and engaged in trade and cooperation with Ukraine. We ended last year with great success in terms of growth of our economic relations. An exchange value of over USD 12.5 billion had seemed hard to achieve not so long before. Today we are having problems with supplies for the Polish machine-building industry, which has been drawing semi-finished products from Ukraine, or with products for Polish steelworks. Another problem resulting from the war is the outflow of Ukrainian workers from Polish companies. These men have returned home to fight. In Poland, they worked in sectors
LET’S HOPE THAT UNDER THE NEW LEADERSHIP, THE MINISTRY OF DEVELOPMENT AND TECHNOLOGY WILL FINALLY TAKE OVER THE ROLE OF AN INSTITUTION COORDINATING SUPPORT FOR POLISH ENTREPRENEURS AFFECTED BY THE WAR 14
Spring 2022
such as construction and transport in a broad sense. Polish employers are having lots of problems with this today: some construction sites are deserted, the trucks of some companies have been standing in parking lots for weeks. The third area is the agricultural and food sector. Ukraine used to be the granary of Europe; grain exports covered a significant part of the needs of many countries. The situation now is very complicated; over 70 percent of Ukrainian agricultural export was carried out by sea, which has become impossible due to the blockade of Ukrainian ports by the Russian fleet. Polish logistics faces a huge challenge: there are now tens of thousands of railroad cars standing on the Ukrainian side of the border; receiving and unloading them exceeds the capacity of Polish railroad terminals. With the continuation of hostilities, these problems will inevitably get worse. Overcoming the crisis in economic exchange depends on the war ending and some kind of agreement being concluded between Kiev and Moscow; what, in your opinion, are the possible future scenarios? Looking at the situation of Ukraine and the Ukrainians with a cool eye, I do not foresee, neither today nor in the long
The Warsaw Voice
