Poland top of FDI

24th July 2010

© viZZZual, www.flickr.com Poland comes top of FDI list for new EU nations Share:

Poland is currently the most promising country for foreign investment out of all the new nations to have joined the European Union, says a recent study by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).

2009 was a particularly bleak year with regards to Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) with all of the new EU states witnessing a decline. However Poland was the one country that came out looking better than its neighbouring competitors.

“In Poland, investment fell by 22 percent. And, in the ten new EU countries with which Poland mainly competes with, the decline was as high as 54 percent,” says Professor Zbigniew Zimny, a consultant and a representative of the UNCTAD report, at a recent press conference.

Statistics from the report state that last year, Poland’s FDI was worth an approximate USD 11 bln, proving that it is amongst one of the few countries in the region which is still able to attract the interest of outside investors.

According to Zimny, the majority of FDI comes from mergers and acquisitions, but, he states, in Poland this has not been the case. This form of investment accounts for a mere 7 percent of FDI, compared to the Czech Republic, where the figure sits at 85 percent.

This bodes well for Poland, where the ‘starting from scratch’ ethic has helped to create more jobs and boost the economy.

“It seems that investment reached the bottom of the world for a while, but now things are beginning to change and Poland’s fortune is beginning to rise,” adds Zimny.