On some foreign field

International firms opening or expanding existing industrial facilities in Poland and the CEE region is nothing new, but at the moment a surprising number are currently relocating production from Western Europe to this country and others in the region Nathan North The decision made by AB Foods in autumn last year to close its Twinings tea plant in Newcastle in the UK and move production to Poland was greeted very differently in both countries. In Britain it hit the headlines for the wrong reasons, when it was discovered that the move, which will result in the loss of nearly 400 British jobs, was being partly funded with an EU grant of EUR 12 mln. But in Poland, AB Foods' EUR 43 mln investment in the conversion of a former car warehouse into a 26,000 sqm Twinings tea factory in Swarzędz-Jasin outside Poznań was, of course, much more welcome. More recently, in May Japan Tobacco Inc. (JTI) announced that it is to close its cigarette factory in Hainburg, Austria (resulting in 320 redun