Development minister announces economic roadmap for Poland

The roadmap, dubbed the “Morawiecki plan” foresees more than PLN 1 trillion in investments over the coming years. The financial sources will be EU funds, bank deposits of Polish companies in the private sector as well as state-owned firms.

The plan will be broken down into five pillars:

1. A 25-year plan

The “Morawiecki plan” aims to strengthen Polish capital, and the growth of innovativeness of Polish companies to be competitive on foreign markets, a gradual development over the next quarter of a century.

2. Large investments

According to the Plan, investments over this period will reach some PLN 1 trillion. The ministry estimates that almost half of the funds, some PLN 480 billion, will be sourced from EU funds. “We want to prepare some 20 large projects in infrastructure and industry which would be easy to commercialise,” Polityka Insight, the organiser of the conference where Morawiecki announced the roadmap, quoted him as saying.

3. How will it be done?

One of the key elements of the plan is to improve Polish competitiveness on the international stage. The government will support innovation around the country, from the Podkarpackie region in the south, to Trójmiasto in the north, Morawiecki said.

Morawiecki: We invite foreign investors particularly in the innovative sector. We'll create hubs for innovation, start-ups #RiskTrends2016

— Polityka Insight (@PInsightEN) February 15, 2016

4. A digital revolution

An important point of the plan, Morawiecki said, is to increase Poland’s participation in the digital revolution.

“We missed the first revolution – steam engines – because Poland was partitioned back then at the end of the eighteenth century. The second revolution – electricity – we also missed because we were fighting for independence. The third, the information revolution, also bypassed us, because [Poland] was then communist and under communist rule. Today, we are experiencing the fourth industrial revolution, often referred to as the digital one. We want to be in the eye of the storm of the digital revolution,” Morawiecki said.

5. Better paid jobs

The Morawiecki Plan also emphasises on increasing jobs. “In order for Polish companies to create more and more jobs, we need to strengthen Polish exports, more precisely, to increase the value of companies creating jobs,” Morawiecki said, explaining that this would cause them to be able to pay better. (rg/pk)