How Poland is assisting to condition the economy of tomorrow - Business Extra podcast

Poland hopes its role as a central and eastern European technology hub can help create cross-investment opportunities in the financial, healthcare and food sectors for Gulf investors, according to a senior official.

Pawel Jablonski, Poland’s undersecretary of state for monetary and development co-operation, for Africa and the center East, was in Abu Dhabi this month to explore methods to expand the country’s trade and commerce beyond its traditional main partners, such as Germany.

There are numerous areas which Poland and the UAE have common ground, including infrastructure development, that could provide the chance for “synergies” to greatly help "shape the economy of tomorrow", Mr Jablonski told the business enterprise Extra podcast.

“We also see that the marketplace in Europe has its limits, and you want to expand also to grow globally. This is why we are bringing these financial relations to a next level also with countries that are geographically further from Poland.”

With about 250 start-ups in the fintech sector, Poland, the EU's sixth major economy, is known as a regional hub. This this represents another potential point of collaboration too, he said.

"One sector that involves mind ... is financial technology, because of the fact that people actually started our transition to a free market economy only 30 years back, and as a result of that, we obviously were lagging behind in lots of sectors. We started later, but thanks to that, we managed to overtake those more developed countries,” said Mr Jablonski.

Other impressive industries developing quickly in Poland include medtech, agrotech, food processing technologies and food storage.

Clean energy and renewables and water management and waste treatment solutions are also growing sectors.

"We are applying these solutions in the home, we are applying them with our neighbours and we also want to export them to switch our experience with countries including the UAE,” Mr Jablonski said.

Poland is also pioneering Smart City technologies "which is, I believe a necessity for the region”, he said.

The knowledge of the Covid-19 pandemic has shown that “we must be more resilient ... It generally does not mean resorting to ... making everything at home, we must co-operate, but these [supply] chains need to be perhaps shorter, perhaps stronger, and we have to have alternatives."

“That is why you want to not only to give attention to this traditional direction of co-operation, also for new ones. Hence, our efforts to strengthen our existence in the Gulf region,” he said.

The 12 countries located between your Baltic, Black, and Adriatic seas, forming The Three Seas grouping - which include Poland - are working together to develop transport, energy and digital infrastructure.

“In central Europe, we are expanding and we are we are strengthening this regional co-operation, especially within the last year or two … And we work very close together,” said Mr Jablonski.

“So when we discuss potential co-operation, I'm representing the Polish government. But also actually, I'm representing the alliance of the 12 countries, a big, big economy of over 110 million people, growing in proportions, with unparalleled developments.”