10/15/2005

Dau Air - New Poland / Germany Routes

It was about this time last year (25.10.04) that Luchtzak Aviation reported plans for a new German airline called Dau Air. One year on, and this fledgling carrier has developed a useful network of routes linking Germany and Poland. Dau Air’s early plans for a Lübeck-Dortmund service never came to fruition, and instead the airline has looked to new markets in the east. The upcoming winter schedules have some intriguing routes: Warsaw to Dortmund with a touchdown at Berlin Tempelhof en route, and Poznan to Zürich with a stop in Dortmund. Other sectors are Stuttgart to Paderborn and a link between the two great trade fair cities of Poznan and Hannover.

The carrier’s Berlin Tempelhof to Poznan service didn’t survive competition from the Deutsche Bahn (which offers a one way fare of €19 for the three hour train journey), so Dau Air quietly dropped that route in the summer. Germanwings decision not after all to introduce a Berlin – Warsaw service gives extra impetus to Dau Air’s decision to link the German and Polish capitals. One way fares including taxes from Berlin to Warsaw are typically about €80, and, rather unusually these days, Dau Air offers a €10 discount to students. Dau Air flies 33 seat Saab 340 Turboprops on all its routes.

(Source: Luchtzak Aviation)

Cheapest flights to Poland - tanie bilety lotnicze



Flights to Poland

Novea - Business in Poland

Poland wants to increase trade with Russia to $12 bln in 2005

Poland hopes to increase trade with Russia to approximately $12 billion in 2005, compared to $9.2 billion in 2004, Poland's Economy and Labor Minister Jacek Piechota said at a Russian-Polish business meeting held by the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs in Moscow on Friday.

"We think that if current trends to Russia remain, exports could grow to $4 billion and Russian imports to almost $8 billion. Mutual trade could reach a record $12 billion," he said.

The prerequisites for this exist, since exports from Poland to Russia grew 54% in January-August 2005 to $2.5 billion compared to the same period in the year prior. Imports to Poland from Russia rose 35% to $5.4 billion. Polish exports grew 88% to $2.8 billion in 2004 and imports from Russia rose 23% to $6.4 billion, Piechota said.

Polish investments in Russia grew to $41.4 million in the first half of 2005 and to $39.5 million in 2004 from $5.2 million in 2002, he said.

"As a result, total inflow of Polish investments to the Russian market was $111.3 million at the end of June 2005, and this includes direct investments of $82.2 million, which is significantly higher than the average figure for foreign investments in Russia," Piechota said.

Polish entrepreneurs have invested in part in particleboard production in Veliky Novgorod, furniture in Vladimir and insulin production at the Bioton company in Orel, he said.

Russian investments in Poland are significantly higher than Polish investments in Russia, Piechota said.

"Russian investments in Poland reached $409.1 million at the end of 2004. A large part - $401 million - came from Gazprom," he said.

Relations between Polish and Russian businessmen would be much more fruitful if Russia was not dragging out ratification of an agreement on incentives and mutual protection of investments between Russia and Poland, which was signed back in 1992, Piechota said.

Specialists are dealing with this issue since ratification should not be drawn out, said Arkady Volsky, president of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs. Russia's relationship with Poland has great potential and Russians and Poles have always understood each other, despite historical difficulties.

(Source: Interfax)

Marketing in Poland



Flights to Poland

Novea - Business in Poland

Poland's Centralwings says to order up to 24 planes

Polish budget airline Centralwings plans to order up to 24 planes worth more than $1 billion as it eyes a bigger slice of one of Europe's fastest-growing air travel markets, its chief executive said.

Centralwings aims to place the order this year and is considering the Boeing Co. 737 and the A319 and A320 models from Airbus, CEO Piotr Kociolek told reporters on Friday.

"I hope to be able to announce an order by the end of the year," Kociolek said.

Centralwings currently flies Boeing 737 planes leased from state-owned parent airline LOT [LOT.UL].

Kociolek said LOT was also preparing to buy new planes, smaller ones seating 100 to 110 passengers.

Fuelled by expansion of the European Union and low-fare carriers establishing new routes, air travel is growing rapidly in Eastern Europe, and nowhere more so than Poland.

Kociolek said low-fares airlines carried fewer than 600,000 passengers on Polish flights in 2003, a figure expected to reach almost 4 million next year.

Centralwings, which started flights in February, expects to carry 720,000 passengers this year and 1.6 million next year.

Charter flights taken over from LOT make up over half of its flying now but Kociolek said low-fare operations would dominate beginning in 2006, with flights linking Poland and Britain and Ireland a key area of growth.

It makes money on the charter business and expects to reach break-even in its low-fares operations by 2008, he said.

Parent firm LOT announced in July it planned an initial public offering (IPO) of shares which is expected to lead to a bourse debut by the second quarter of 2006.

Kociolek said he expected the size of the IPO would be "no more than 20 percent"

(Source: Reuters)

Cheapest flights - tanie bilety lotnicze.



Flights to Poland

Novea - Business in Poland

Poland's Centralwings says to order up to 24 planes

Polish budget airline Centralwings plans to order up to 24 planes worth more than $1 billion as it eyes a bigger slice of one of Europe's fastest-growing air travel markets, its chief executive said.

Centralwings aims to place the order this year and is considering the Boeing Co. 737 and the A319 and A320 models from Airbus, CEO Piotr Kociolek told reporters on Friday.

"I hope to be able to announce an order by the end of the year," Kociolek said.

Centralwings currently flies Boeing 737 planes leased from state-owned parent airline LOT [LOT.UL].

Kociolek said LOT was also preparing to buy new planes, smaller ones seating 100 to 110 passengers.

Fuelled by expansion of the European Union and low-fare carriers establishing new routes, air travel is growing rapidly in Eastern Europe, and nowhere more so than Poland.

Kociolek said low-fares airlines carried fewer than 600,000 passengers on Polish flights in 2003, a figure expected to reach almost 4 million next year.

Centralwings, which started flights in February, expects to carry 720,000 passengers this year and 1.6 million next year.

Charter flights taken over from LOT make up over half of its flying now but Kociolek said low-fare operations would dominate beginning in 2006, with flights linking Poland and Britain and Ireland a key area of growth.

It makes money on the charter business and expects to reach break-even in its low-fares operations by 2008, he said.

Parent firm LOT announced in July it planned an initial public offering (IPO) of shares which is expected to lead to a bourse debut by the second quarter of 2006.

Kociolek said he expected the size of the IPO would be "no more than 20 percent"

Cheapest flights - tanie bilety lotnicze.



Flights to Poland

Novea - Business in Poland

Germans invest in Poland

Poland is a very attractive country for foreign investors reads a report prepared by the Research Institute for Market Economy. The document entitled Poland a place for German Investments shows that qualified personnel, low labour costs attract the attention of German investors. Data shows that at the end of last year German investments in Poland amounted to 10 billion USD

(Source: Radio Polonia)

Invest in Poland



Flights to Poland

Novea - Business in Poland

Ryanair may build its service base in Poland

Rynair, Irish low-cost carrier, is looking for a site to build its servicing centre. Rzeszow, south-eastern Poland, and Riga in Latvia are taken into consideration.

The decision will be made till year-end, Tomasz Kulakowski responsible for Ryanair’s sailes and marketing in Central Europe said. The investment will amount to EUR 100m. The first stage should be finished till December 2006. 500 people will work in the centre.

In the second stage, in 2007, 700 more people will be employed, Tomasz Kulakowski added.

The Polish investment agency PAIIZ has joined negotiations.

An offer for Ryanair is being prepared. A long-term programme of state subsidies may be offered to the investor, Sebastian Mikosz, PAIIZ deputy CEO said.

Ryanair is going to have 35m passengers till April 2006.

It is more than Lufthansa, Tomasz Kulakowski said.

Rynair will launch new routes to Poland within some dozen days. It will fly from 8 airports to 13 cities. It considers another investment in Poland within three years.

(Source: APA/pb)

Tanie loty - cheap flights



Flights to Poland

Novea - Business in Poland

Onion prices increased in Poland; potato price is still higher

According to Polski Portal Rolny , bulb onion prices are lower than potato prices in Poland that is untypical for this country. Today the onion purchase prices are about USD 0.14-0.16/kg; at the same time potato is purchased on USD 0.17-0.19/kg. To the Poland farmers' opinion, though onion price grew significantly comparing to the beginning of 2005 (when this product cost USD 0.06-0.07/kg), onion is still sold on less than production cost price.

Just to compare - the wholesale price on onion is USD 0.17-0.2/kg that is consistent to potato price both in Poland and Ukraine; potato production decreased this year in the countries. At the same time onion remains one of the few vegetables which cost more in Ukraine than in Poland; though the difference is insignificant. We'll remind that previous years vegetable prices were substantially less in Poland than in Ukraine.

According to the evaluations of the Agricultural Marketing Project specialists, the average onion production cost will be worth nearly USD 0.09/kg. If the information provided by Polish farmers is trustworthy, onion production in that country is approximately 80% dearer than in Ukraine.

(Source: lol.org.ua)

Cheap flights to Poland



Flights to Poland

Novea - Business in Poland

10/14/2005

Level 3 Announces Expansion to Poland; Signs Key Customer Agreements

Level 3 Providing Service to Warsaw-Based Telekomunikacja Kolejowa Sp. z o.o. and ATM S.A.

Level 3 Communications, Inc. (Nasdaq: LVLT) today announced its European operating subsidiaries are now providing Internet Protocol (IP) services in Warsaw, Poland. With this expansion, Level 3 now serves 23 of the largest markets in Europe. Level 3 is offering (3)CrossRoads(R), its wholesale high-speed Internet access service, to Internet Service Providers (ISPs), cable providers and carriers selling communications services in Poland. Among Level 3's customers in Warsaw are Telekomunikacja Kolejowa Sp. z o.o. and ATM S.A. Under the terms of both agreements, Level 3 will supply IP transit and access to its extensive international Internet backbone via the new Point of Presence (PoP) in Warsaw, therefore enabling access to the global Internet. "Poland is a key market for us. Along with many of its neighbours, Poland is seeing rapid development that is bringing with it remarkable growth and demand for quality IP transit," said Brady Rafuse, president of Level 3's European operations. "Level 3 is now a significant Tier 1 Internet provider in Poland. We are delighted to be expanding our relationship with Telekomunikacja Kolejowa and to be selected by ATM S.A. for the provision of IP services." Level 3 already supplies IP transit to Telekomunikacja Kolejowa Sp. z o.o., a modern provider of telecommunications services that operates high-quality, secure networks. Telekomunikacja Kolejowa's optical fibre network covers more than 6,000 kilometres. The company has several decades of experience in providing telecommunications services to the railway industry and now offers a portfolio of services to other types of customers such as national defence and government departments. The corporation has multiple divisions, including headquarters in Warsaw and other offices in Szczecin, Lublin, Poznan, Krakow, Gdansk, Wroclaw and Katowice.

(Source: PRnewswire)

Business in Poland



Flights to Poland

Novea - Business in Poland

Poland transfers advanced shipbuilding technology to Viet Nam

The Viet Nam Ship Buiding Industry Corporation (Vinashin) with assistance from the Ship Design and Research Centre (CTO) of Poland, opened a training course for 30 local ship designers in Ha Noi on Oct. 13.

Under the course, Polish experts will transfer advanced shipbuilding technology to the Vietnamese engineers, who will have opportunities to access the most sophisticated ship designing software.

As part of the three-month course, local trainees will join Polish experts in designing the 104,000-tonne Aframax ship.

Vinashin set itself a target of being capable of designing 60,000-tonne ships by 2008. To that aim, the corporation has sent a group of designers to Poland to study the building of 100,000-tonne vessels.

Poland has supplied important ship equipment and shipbuilding technology to Viet Nam, such as software for designing 1,016 twenty-foot-equivalent unit (TEU) container ships, for Viet Nam.

(Source: VNA)

Recruitment and executive search in Poland



Flights to Poland

Novea - Business in Poland

10/13/2005

Millions of cigarettes seized in Poland

Polish customs officials have seized at least 8 million cigarettes apparently destined for the British market in a coordinated sweep in two cities this week, the country's biggest such haul so far this year, an official said Wednesday.

In one case, the smugglers were caught Tuesday at the Polish-German border crossing of Jedrzychowice-Ludwigsdorf. The truck they were driving had containers rigged with special lenses that produced an optical illusion that made them seem empty, said Arkadiusz Baredziak, a spokesman for Polish customs.

"Inside the containers, there were really over 4 million cigarettes," he said.

In a separate operation Wednesday, authorities seized another 4 million cigarettes in Radom, a city about 60 miles south of Warsaw.

The 8 million cigarettes are valued at around 8 million zloties (US$2.5 million).

Many of the packages' original Cyrillic labeling had been replaced with labels in English, leading police to believe they were destined for Britain, Baredziak said.

Polish internal security officers had been observing the suspected smuggling group for weeks and believe the two stockpiles belong to the same group of smugglers. Baredziak would not say where the suspects, who have been detained, were from.

The cigarettes, mostly low-quality Ukrainian-made, will be incinerated, he said.

Poland, a new member of the European Union, lies on the community's eastern border, and is under pressure to rein in smuggling from its poorer non-EU neighbors - Ukraine and Belarus.

(Source: AP)

Marketing research in Poland



Flights to Poland

Novea - Business in Poland

Poland in $1bn offer

Poland sold $1bn of 10-year bonds on Wednesday in the country’s first return to the global dollar market in two years.

The 2015 notes were priced to yield 12 basis points above the 10-year mid-swap rate, with a coupon of 5 per cent. The pricing was at the tight end of the 12-14bp price guidance given to investors.

Poland’s last foray into the global dollar market was in October 2003. Since then, the country has joined the European Union, and its yields have fallen significantly. But with an A2 credit rating by Moody’s Investors Service and two notches lower at BBB+ by Standard & Poor’s, Polish debt still pays a premium to many other European borrowers.

“With a relatively flat dollar yield curve at the moment, Poland offered sovereign investment grade risk at a spread above mid-swaps and a 5 per cent coupon, which proved attractive to a lot of investors,” said Edward Mizuhara of Lehman Brothers, which managed the sale with JPMorgan.

Reverse inquiries from mainly US investors also led the country to issue $100m of 30-year notes. Investors were paid 17bp for taking 30-year exposure to Poland, compared with the 10-year issue.

Investors will get another chance to invest in 10-year dollar global bonds on Thursday, when the European Investment Bank is expected to sell a $1bn bond.

The AAA-rated financing vehicle of the EU selected Citigroup, HSBC and JPMorgan to lead-manage the sale.

On Wednesday, the EIB raised the size of its Turkish lira-denominated March 2008 issue by TL25m ($18.7m) to take the outstanding amount to TL180m.

RBC Capital Markets managed the sale of the 13 per cent notes.

(Source: FT.com)

Cheapest flights to Poland



Flights to Poland

Novea - Business in Poland

10/10/2005

A new image for a new Poland

After years of neglect, Poland is finally being promoted, with one huge campaign underway and new campaigns to begin in 2006.

Since the beginning of October, a six-week image-building campaign promoting Poland as a modern and reliable economic partner and attractive location for investment has been running on BBC World and CNN as well as in Time Magazine, the Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times. Altogether 500 thirty-second commercials will run on the two channels, while 10 advertisements will be published in the prestigious publications.

The zł.1.4 million "The Heart of Europe" campaign, funded by the Polish Information and Foreign Investment Agency (PAIiIZ), is supposed to help Poland shake off the image of a corrupt, backward country associated with bison and horse-drawn carts.

"We would like [Poland] to be perceived as a developing country with a student community of over two million and highly qualified specialists, a country whose biggest assets are people, R&D, services and a capital related center of the CEE region" said PAIiIZ deputy president and Undersecretary of State in the Ministry for Economic Affairs and Labor, Marcin Kaszuba.

PAIiIZ also promoted Poland at EXPO 2005 in Aichi, where the Polish stand was visited by over one million participants.

Next year the Polish National Tourist Office (POT) will launch campaigns promoting Poland and encouraging tourists to come to the country. Until now promotional campaigns have been almost non-existent. It was easier to spot billboards and TV commercials inviting tourists to explore Slovakia, the Czech Republic or Hungary rather than invitations to holiday in Poland.

Now all that is going to change, as the budget for 2005 grants POT the zł.48 million for promotional campaigns. "This will allow us to prepare a serious advertising campaign. We have to reach those who do not know Poland," POT media advisor Krzysztof Turowski said.

The new funds are significantly more than the previous zł.30 million, which certainly hasn't helped in promoting Poland. "Hungary, which has a population four times smaller, had a budget four times the size of ours" Turowski complained.

"The campaign with the Polish Plumber may have worked once. It was a huge success, but it was a coincidence, we got a chance to do a cheap and a very effective campaign. Now with the funds that we have received from the new budget we will be able to bounce off from rock bottom. We need to have money to launch smart campaigns, to abolish stereotypes, to be humorous," Turowski underlined.

He disclosed that POT has started working on advertising campaigns which will target Germany, the UK and Poland. Germany is the largest market by far with regard to visitors coming to Poland, so POT plans to launch a billboard campaign in Berlin and other main German cities next summer. "In the summer the football World Cup will be held in Germany and the whole world will be there" Turowski explained. In the UK the campaign will concentrate on London, however, as Turowski adds, if funds allow, Manchester will also be targeted.

"Tourism is a powerful business, worth billions of dollars. Officials understand that it can spark economic growth and in many regions it could be the only way to tackle unemployment," he concludes.

(Source: WBJ)

Business in Poland



Flights to Poland

Novea - Business in Poland

Poland bans poultry imports from Romania and Turkey

Poland has banned poultry imports from Romania and Turkey amid reports that avian flu had been detected in the two countries.
Poland’s chief veterinarian Krzysztof Jazdzewki said a crisis team is to meet on Monday to discuss reports that the strain of the bird flu virus transmissible to humans had been detected in Romania, which due to its geographical closeness to Poland, ‘would be extremely dangerous’. Authorities in Romania and Turkey have blamed the appearance of the virus on migratory birds from Russia, where outbreaks were reported earlier in the year in Siberia.

(Source: Radio Polonia)

Cheap flights to Poland - (but no sick poultry allowed).



Flights to Poland

Novea - Business in Poland

Poland's Tusk Faces Presidential Runoff, Polls Show

Poland's Donald Tusk, who leads the race for president, will face his key rival again later this month after failing to take at least 50 percent of the vote, exit polls show.

Tusk won 38.7 percent of the vote, with his main rival, Warsaw Mayor Lech Kaczynski, taking 33.2 percent, according to an exit poll by GfK Polonia for private TV station TVN24. The State Election Committee plans to release final results by tomorrow evening. The second round of voting will be held Oct. 23.

``The next two weeks won't see a campaign that will be decided by billboards, money and empty promises,'' Tusk said on public television after initial results were announced. ``People know what we stand for and what our visions are.''

The lack of a first-round win may stall coalition talks and delay the formation of a government until the final week of October. Kaczynski's Law & Justice party and Tusk's Citizens' Platform together won the Sept. 25 parliamentary election and are seeking to overcome disagreements on economic policy as they work to form a joint cabinet.

Law & Justice Chairman Jaroslaw Kaczynski nominated Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz for prime minister Sept. 27. He had said he wouldn't become premier if his twin brother, Lech, won the presidency.

Taxes, Euro Adoption

``We still don't know who is really going to be prime minister,'' said Ryszard Petru, chief economist at BPH Bank in Warsaw. ``That makes these presidential elections more important than in the past.''

The two parties campaigned for the general election on promises to boost salaries and cut unemployment, at 17.8 percent the highest in the European Union. They disagree on the extent of tax cuts and on how quickly Poland should adopt the euro.

``We can forget the idea of trying to adopt the euro during this parliamentary term if Kaczynski becomes president,'' Petru said.

Law & Justice won 155 seats in the Sept. 25 election for the 460-seat parliament. Citizens' Platform took 133 seats. The parties pledged in February to work together. Neither won enough votes to form a government on its own.

Of the more than 30 million Poles eligible to vote, 49.8 percent went to the polls today, according to researcher GfK Polonia, the lowest turnout in any presidential election since the collapse of communism 16 years ago.

(Source: Bloomberg)

Marketing research - deep insight in Polish market - Novea.
All about business in Poland.



Flights to Poland

Novea - Business in Poland

Poland is interested in active cooperation with Kyrgyzstan.

Ambassador of Poland in Kyrgyzstan Vladislav Sokolovsky told today at opening of the international exhibition "Bishkek - 2005". He told that, big group of Polish businessmen arrived in Bishkek exhibition. Here they are going to get acquainted with opportunities of the country and to plan ways of cooperation.

According to the Ambassador, Poland joined the European Union one and half year ago. In turn this is good opportunity for Kyrgyzstan to introduce new technologies together with the Polish enterprises in manufacture and to develop the industry.

“Kyrgyzstan is the country which is possible to cooperate and work. The Polish businessmen in your country are interested in stability and investment climate”, the Ambassador told.

(Source: Kabar)

Full-service assistance in business in Poland



Flights to Poland

Novea - Business in Poland

CEMR session in capital of mid-western Poland

“Nothing about us without us” is the motto of a session of the Council of European Municipalities and Regions meeting in Poznan, the capital of Wielkopolska in mid-western Poland. Wielkopolska is one of the over 250 members of this organization grouping regions from throughout the Continent, not only from among EU countries. CEMR is responsible for representing the member regions’ interests on the international forum and formulates opinions on the various documents adopted by the European Union. The Poznan session is devoted to reducing differences in development prospects of the regions envisaged in the 2007-2013 EU financial policy tenets. Preparations will also be reviewed to the November meeting of the General Assembly in Strasbourg, which is to define the role of regions in the process of European development.

(Source: Radio Polonia)

PR, conferences, events in Poland - NOVEA.



Flights to Poland

Novea - Business in Poland