Polish Business News Magazine

With residential and non-residential construction still subdued, cement producers in Central Europe are hoping that infrastructure upgrade investments co-financed with EU sources will help the industry in the challenging times.

MTC Pharma Center specializes in the production of high quality foil packaging solutions for the pharmaceutical industry. The company is owned by Austria-based MTC Holding, an international group with production sites also located in Croatia, Slovenia, Romania and Serbia, and works in partnership with Constantia Verpackungen AG Group.

More than two out of three people in the UK rate their own health as very good or good, higher than average across the European Union, according to the Second European Quality of Life Survey (2EQLS), carried out by Eurofound, the Dublin-based EU Agency. People also rate the quality of and access to their health care system relatively high similar to Norway, Germany and Spain. According to the survey, the British have little trust in their political institutions, rating it on a par with levels recorded in the twelve new EU Member States. The survey, to be launched under the Czech EU Presidency in Prague on 25 March, also reveals that Europeans are generally satisfied with their quality of life despite big variations between both levels of life satisfaction and happiness, especially among the 12 new EU Member States.

The European Commission has presented its list of eleven new fast track actions to reduce administrative burdens for companies, in order to enhance economic growth. They are the second package of such fast track actions and form part of the overall programme to reduce the administrative burdens for entrepreneurs, by 25 percent in 2012. These immediate measures are likely to generate significant benefits of around 1 Billion Euro through technical changes in existing rules (e.g. reporting obligations).

The European Commission expects Poland's general government deficit to be below 3% of GDP this year. But, at the same time, it is expected to rebound above 3% in 2008, according to the Commission's autumn economic forecasts based, inter alia, on the draft budget adopted by the outgoing government, the EC said.

Poland's Komenda Glowna Strazy Granicznej has selected Alcatel-Lucent (Euronext Paris and NYSE: ALU) to lead a consortium with Elbit Security Systems Ltd. (formerly 'Ortek'), to deploy a sophisticated Observation Tower System that will be based on advanced long- range observation equipment.

When Aleksander Kucharski arrived in Britain from Poland, he expected he would get a first-class education.

Poland's conservative Kaczynski twins were beaten in a parliamentary election on Sunday by a centre-right opposition party ready to mend relations with EU allies, speed economic reforms and pull troops from Iraq.

Poland's credit rating could get an upgrade if a reform-minded government emerges from next week's general election, Standard and Poor's credit analyst Kai Stukenbrock said on Monday.

ARCADIS, the international consulting and engineering company, today announced the award of a EUR 11 million contract to design a 65 km long section of the A-1 motorway in Poland. The contract was awarded to an ARCADIS-led consortium with partners Mosty Katowice, Transprojekt Warsaw and DHV Polska. Client is the General Directorate for National Roads and Motorways. The project is co-financed by the European Union.

CB Richard Ellis, the world’s leading commercial real estate services firm has issued the latest report in its “Big Box” series which provides a detailed snapshot the current warehouse and logistics market in Poland. The latest report accounts for Q2 2007 but also provides a short analysis of the progression of the market following Poland’s accession into the European Union 3 years ago.

Marked differences exist between EU Member States in the total number of days' leave they offer workers, with some countries having almost three-and-a-half working weeks' more time off than others. Research findings published today from the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions (Eurofound) show that workers in Sweden have 42 days of annual leave and public holidays combined, in contrast to workers in Estonia, who have just 26 days. In addition, the length of the working week and annual hours worked vary greatly from one country to another.

Polish environmental and building technologies (EBT) industry experienced a rise in exports and greater integration with Western European countries since joining the EU. The accession compelled the industry to implement a series of environmental programs and policies to comply with EU environmental standards. In due course, the Polish EBT industry became one of the most vibrant ones in the Central and Eastern European (CEE) region.

Milk and cheese products are more than twice as expensive in the rest of the 27 European countries than in Eastern Europe, according to a Eurostat report.

The EU is moving closer to implementing measures to protect the food chain from a terrorist attack, by publishing a discussion paper on stepped up security measures that would affect manufacturers.

The Polish government hopes to boost the status and appeal of its food products with new legislation designed to increase funding within the industry.

POLAND'S fractious, pig-headed government has survived for nearly 18 months, against the expectations of most commentators. Lech and Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the identical twins who are respectively president and prime minister, may be disastrous in foreign affairs, but at home life rumbles on fine. Poland took in a record $14.7 billion in foreign investment last year, and the economy is growing at almost 6% a year.

Employee costs are significantly lower in Poland, Lithuania, Estonia and Slovenia, while they are at the highest in Germany, Denmark and Belgium according to an EU remuneration study by Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu.

President Lech Kaczynski said that his country wanted the European Union (EU) to maintain friendly and substantial relations with Russia.

According to leading British newspaper the Sun, Poland is unable to complete building projects because of the huge amount of Poles now living in the UK.

The economy is estimated to have increased by 5.7 percent in 2006, up from 3.5 percent the previous year.

President Vladimir Putin said in a veiled warning to Poland and other East European nations on Wednesday they risked creating fresh divisions in Europe by treating Russia as an enemy instead of a strategic partner.

Poland must adopt the euro when it meets the criteria spelled out by EU law, the European Commission said yesterday, commenting on Warsaw’s plans to put euro membership to a referendum.

Poland's objections are threatening to prevent the European Union from agreeing on a blueprint for negotiations with Russia on a new partnership according to EU officials.

Half of the homeless people in central London come from Eastern Europe after immigration from the former communist bloc jumped 54 percent last year, reports show today.

Poles overwhelmingly support their country's membership in the European Union, according to a poll released Monday, despite their leaders' tussles with Brussels.

Restricting the ingredients that could be used to make true vodka in the EU would likely cause a fresh dispute at the World Trade Organisation, as EU nations split into three camps.

Poland opens its job market to workers from all EU states as well as from Iceland, Lichtenstein and Norway.

Germany and Poland have never had the easiest of relationships. But under the Kaczynski twins, the Polish government is drumming up nationalist fervor to maintain its fragile coalition. Relations with Germany have cooled perceptibly, and next week's visit to Berlin by the Polish prime minister may bring no improvement.

EU quotas, which have been criticised for damaging Poland’s dairy production, could actually help the industry to thrive in the EU, according to an industry expert.

MANY countries would love to have the problems of the EU-8, the eight once-captive nations that joined the European Union in 2004. Sheltered by NATO and locked into the legal architecture of civilised Europe, they are flourishing in a way that seemed hardly possible when they leapt to freedom in 1989. Their economic growth is enviable: Estonia's is a breakneck 12%.