The Hindu Business Line : Poland invites Indian investments with focus on SME sector

Snapshot
Upward trend in 2-way trade between both the countries in 2007 at $700 million.
Education, technology, energy are the three areas which had the potential to attract investments in Poland.

Our Bureau

Kolkata, Jan. 14

Urging Indian entrepreneurs to look at investments in Poland more closely, Mr Adam Szejnfeld, Minister of State for Economy, Government of the Republic of Poland, on Monday called for renewed focus on closer bilateral trade ties between India and Poland in the SME sector.

Addressing members of the Bengal National Chamber of Commerce at an interactive session on ‘Enhancing Indo-Polish Economic Cooperation’, Mr Szenjfeld said two-way trade between the two countries has shown an upward trend in the first 10 months of 2007 at $700 million against the $671-million in 2006-07.

Suggesting that the full potential of bilateral trade between the two was yet to be fully realised, he said, “we need to move forward from close cooperation in the mining and chemicals sectors to areas like IT”.

Pointing out that privatisation of State enterprises was now in the final stages in Poland, the Minister said his country was now registering an annual economic growth of around 6-7 per cent, signalling that time was now ripe to reap the full benefits of such high GDP growth.

The real challenge, according to him, was harnessing of the emerging new technologies to move towards an environment-friendly manufacturing scenario. He singled out education, technology and energy as the three areas which had the potential to attract investments in Poland.

IT sector, he clarified, was now receiving the topmost priority from the Polish Government. Poland, as known, is much better placed in IT today in eastern Europe with the majority of the people able to speak English.

He said meetings over the proposed Indo-Polish Economic Committee would be held in Delhi soon to take the proposal forward.

On the aviation front, he said Poland was keen to establish direct flights between the two countries, which could happen only in 2009, as Poland was keen to do this first with China for the Beijing Olympic Games.