Partnership between Poland and Bulgaria has great potential: Minister Kalfin

Bulgaria and Poland have traditionally good bilateral relations, which have to go on developing and strengthening, Bulgarian Vice PM and Foreign Minister Ivaylo Kalfin said at a meeting with his Polish counterpart Anna Fotyga, the ministry’s press office announced.
Minister Fotyga is on an official visit to Bulgaria on May 31st and June 1st at the invitation of Minister Kalfin.
The two ministers discussed bilateral relations and a number of European and world issues of common interest.
Minister Kalfin stressed the potential of widening economic relations within the EU’s internal market.
Ministers Kalfin and Fotyga exchanged information about the two countries’ accession to the Schengen zone without internal borders.
In the presence of journalists the two signed an intergovernmental protocol on reviewing bilateral agreements between Bulgaria and Poland.
Source:focus-fen.net

ThyssenKrupp Open Steel Service Center in Poland

ThyssenKrupp Stahl-Service-Center GmbH, a subsidiary of ThyssenKrupp Steel AG, will serve important markets in Eastern Europe from a service center in Poland in the future. The center in the southern Polish town of Dabrowa Górnicza near Katowice was opened on May 31, 2007. Under the name ThyssenKrupp Stal Serwis Polska it will produce 125,000 tons of hot and cold-rolled coil and coated slit strip per year for customers in Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Belarus, Hungary and Ukraine.

The new service center reflects the strategic importance of Eastern Europe, a region in which the company aims to expand. “In Poland and its southern neighbors alone, demand for processed steel products in 2005 was 2.2 million tons per year and this is expected to rise to 3.7 million tons by 2010. That's a growth rate of more than eleven percent," said Dr. Jost A. Massenberg, Member of the Executive Board of ThyssenKrupp Steel AG, at the opening ceremony.

The main customers targeted in the Eastern European markets place particularly high demands on the surface quality and dimensional accuracy of processed steel products. They include car producers, automotive suppliers, stamping plants and appliance manufacturers and suppliers. So far ThyssenKrupp Stahl-Service-Center has supplied around 120 customers in the region from its German sites. The new steel service center in Poland will bring the company closer to its customers and ensure even faster service.

The centerpiece of the new facility will be a slitting line to process flat-rolled steel from ThyssenKrupp Steel production into slit strip. The slitting line can process coils in weights up to 30 tons and strip thicknesses from 0.4 to 4.0 millimeters. The strength of the material can be up to 1,400 megapascals. Materials which such high strength levels are used for example for side impact protection in car doors. The slit strip will be available in widths from 25 to 1,800 millimeters.

Built in only eight months, the steel service centre is located under the roof of a 75,000 square meter service and logistics complex owned by the ThyssenKrupp Group. As well as ThyssenKrupp Stal Serwis Polska, it houses the companies ThyssenKrupp Energostal, a Polish subsidiary of ThyssenKrupp Services, and ThyssenKrupp Stainless Poland, a company from the Stainless segment of the ThyssenKrupp Group. Close cooperation in the Group network will create synergies and opportunities to share know-how which the companies will exploit intensively.

Sourceazom.com

Poland scores 7.4 per cent first quarter growth

Thursday 31 May 2007 11:09

Poland recorded soaring 7.4 per cent growth in gross domestic product (GDP) in the first quarter of 2007, topping the 5. 5 per cent rise in the same period last year, Poland's Central Statistical Office (GUS) reported Thursday.

Poland scored 5. 8 per cent GDP growth overall in 2006, with the central bank predicting a 5. 7 per cent rise this year and growth of around 5 per cent in 2008 and 2009.

Unemployment, currently hovering near 15 per cent and among the highest in the 27-member EU, is expected to drop to 10 per cent by 2009, according to the National Bank of Poland (NBP).
Source: jurnalo.com

Poland may face nationwide strikes

The number of wage strikes in Poland's state-run sector is growing, with fears complete nationwide walkouts could be coming, Polish Radio said Wednesday.

Up to now, the government has been talking only about money in its dealing with each of the various groups on strike. However, the government should work out reforms that would clarify the future of state sector employees, an analyst told Polish Radio Wednesday.

Michal Boni, international labor expert and a member of the Polish Solidarity trade union, said the government should organize a round table for negotiations.

In a commentary on the recent strikes, Polish Radio recounted a string of strikes in state-run institutions that included protests by hospital nurses, civilians employed by the military, police and miners, and ongoing protests by physicians and school teachers.

The state-run radio said more strikes by state sector employees demanding higher pay could turn into a nationwide protest.

Source:upi.com

Poland: Company To Offer Natural Gas Access

German energy company Wintershall is expected to offer Poland access to Western natural gas through the Opal pipeline to provide Poland with an alternative to Russian natural gas, German daily Handelsblatt reported May 30. About 310 miles of the proposed pipeline would run parallel to the Polish border and give Poland access to natural gas through the North Sea.

Source: stratfor.com

oland unlikely to approve new German gas link, does not diversify sources - Econ Ministry

Poland is unlikely to be interested in a proposal to create a gas pipeline link between Germany and Poland, which is slated to be presented Wednesday by German gas companies BASF and Wingas Transport, because it does not fit the country's energy diversification strategy, according to the Polish Economy Ministry."A link between Polish and German gas pipelines is not diversification because it just redirects gas coming from the east," Polish Economy Minister Piotr Wozniak told reporters on the sidelines of the Polish-British Conference on Bio-energy, organized by the Polish Economy Ministry.

"This is another technical solution, while we want to get gas from sources other than eastern ones," he said.
Wingas and BASF are to present a potential gas pipeline link plan, which would see Poland obtain gas from a German gas pipeline that transports gas to the Czech Republic, according to Polish media reports. Wingas is a joint venture between Wintershall AG - a subsidiary of BASF - and Russian gas giant Gazprom.

Poland has been desperately seeking new gas sources in the wake of the German-Russian-backed Nord Stream Baltic Sea gas pipeline project, which will link Russia and Germany directly - and which the Polish government feels could endanger Polish energy security by allowing Russia to supply business partners in the EU while leaving Poland out of the loop. Thus a political crisis could see Poland cut off from gas supplies with no risk to other countries in the EU.

Wozniak repeated that the driver behind Polish gas policy remains diversification of gas supply sources, based on two projects: the gas pipeline linking Poland and Norwegian gas fields and the ongoing LNG terminal project in Swinoujscie.

Wozniak added that neither Wingas, nor BASF, have presented the German gas link project to the Economy Ministry.

"We have not received any official proposal from these companies," Wozniak said.
Source:wiadomosci.onet.p

Poland’s Pomerania and Belarusian regions have cooperation potential, Ruslan Esin says

The province of Pomerania and the regions of Belarus have big cooperation potential, General Consul of the Republic of Belarus to Gdansk Ruslan Esin said in an interview to Belarusian mass media.
“It is important that direct links should be established between Belarusian regions and the north-western region of Belarus so that Belarusian large companies-exporters have partners and work without middlemen there,” the diplomat said.
According to him, in Gdansk and other towns of the province have opportunities to promote services of Belarusian construction organizations, goods of the petrochemical companies and high-tech products. This region of Poland is an important transport route to deliver goods via Baltic seaports. However today Polish seaports cannot offer competitive tariffs for transshipment of Belarusian foods. “The prices for the services of the railway services are almost two times as high as the tariffs on deliveries of Belarusian goods to the Baltic seaports of other countries. However I am sure that in the future the Polish seaports will get involved in the cargo flow of Belarusian import and export,” Ruslan Esin said.
Businessmen of Belarus and Poland have started implementing concrete programs. For example the 1st Pomerania-Belarusian business meeting was held not long ago in Pomerania. Attending the meeting were more than 100 representatives of business and local authorities representing the two sides. “This instills hope that a Belarusian commodity distribution network will be set up in the Polish province,” the diplomat said.
The Consulate General of Belarus in Gdansk is encouraging large Belarusian companies to seize opportunities which open up in view of the European football championships which will be staged in Poland in 2012. Gdansk will become one of the venues of the championships. A part of financial resources including the EU funds allocated for the development of the sports and tourist infrastructure will be concentrated there. Belarus may offer construction machines and materials and may set up joint ventures to build the infrastructure objects.
‘Today the Belarusian embassy and the consulate have been doing everything possible to create a foundation for consolidating the economic positions of Belarus and Poland’, Ruslan Esin said.
According to the diplomat, the main task of the consulate general of the Republic of Belarus in Gdansk is to promote the economic interests of the country, to popularize tourist routes and other Belarusian sights and to improve relations with the Belarusian diaspora. ‘We want local Belarusians and natives of Belarus to know that we are ready to protect their interests. The economic growth Belarus has achieved may be used for the creation of joint ventures on the territory of Poland’, the consul general underlined. ‘We also inform residents of the Polish Pomerania about Belarus’ travel potential’, the diplomat said. There is a corresponding information booth in the consulate general. Officials of the consulate use contacts with the regional mass media outlets to inform the Pomeranian residents about Belarus’ travel potential. Not long ago a Belarusian exposition was presented within the framework of the 10the travel exhibition in Gdansk. Visitors of the exhibition paid intense interest in the travel possibilities of Belarus, representatives of the Belarusian travel companies underlined. According to the diplomat, the consulate general has been doing everything to inform representatives of the Belarusian diaspora in Gdansk about the restoration of historical places and about new travel sights in Belarus.
Source:law.by

Poland a medical care tourism hotspot

The number of people traveling to Poland from Western Europe for cheap but very good private medical care is likely to rise up to 20 percent per year.
Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary have been leading the list of private medical care tourism since the three countries joined the European Union in 2004, Polish Radio reported Monday.
Lukasz Liese of the Internet medicare tourism company StatMedica said patients from Western countries are surging into these three countries because of prices and quality being offered at private hospitals.
Visitors can get good work done for up to 60 percent less for some medical treatments in Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary, Liese said. The low cost of budget airlines also has added to making Poland an attractive country for Western patients.
Source: upi.com

Poland Says It May Block WTO Entry

The European Union might block Russia's entry to the World Trade Organization if Russia does not compromise in a dispute over Polish meat imports, Polish President Lech Kaczynski was quoted as saying in a Swiss newspaper.

"If Russia remains as uncompromising as it has been so far, I don't rule that out," Kaczynski told Swiss paper Neue ZЯercher Zeitung am Sonntag. "But again: We are not looking for a confrontation with Russia. That's a myth."

Russia imposed a ban on imports of Polish meat and other agricultural products 17 months ago, citing cases of forged certificates. Warsaw said the ban was politically motivated to punish it for moving out of Moscow's orbit.

Kaczynski said Poland had to be consistent. "We only want our Russian partners to understand that there is no basis for a renewed Russian dominance over Eastern Europe," he said. "It's less about being tough. It's about being consistent. ... We want real cooperation and no blackmailing in the energy area or unrealistic 'friendship prices.'"

Source:themoscowtimes.com