Two ports in a storm

Participants representing a range of professions in the property market and beyond gathered in the historic Dwór Artusa building in Gdańsk to find out about investment opportunities in two cities with some of the best economic potential in Europe  

It’s hard to know what to think about the crisis. Is it coming to an end in Poland or is the worst still ahead? There are those who say that now the German election has taken place, there’ll be some serious cuts and layoffs, with a ripple effect hitting Poland. And there are those who say that Poland is a unique case and has ridden out the storm. Certainly the country has not been hit as hard as many others.

This might explain the mood of optimism at the Eurobuild conference entitled ‘Surfing towards new horizons’, despite the fact that we had the same story about the “lack of financing” and exasperated cries of “when will the banks start lending money?” as we have heard over the last 12 months. The Dwór Artusa building in Gdańsk was a suitable setting, a reminder of Gdańsk’s past wealth and a symbol of its continuing ambition.

The conference opened with warm words of welcome from the mayor of Gdańsk, Paweł Adamowicz, and the deputy mayor of Sopot, Paweł Orłowski, who both talked about the diversity of the projects planned, developed or under development in their respective cities. They were followed by keynote speaker Irena Herbst, President of the Board of Fundacja Centrum PPP (the PPP Foundation Centre), who argued that PPP is the only feasible option for financing municipal projects. With this in mind, officials from Gdańsk and Sopot then presented some notably ambitious investment opportunities. Iwona Bierut, director of the department of economic policy for Gdańsk, highlighted several projects, including the new ‘Wystawiennicze’ congress centre, the northern part of the Spichrzów Island project, the Pas Nadmorski development, and the ‘Rejon Targu Siennego i Rakowego’ development. Regina Kaszkur, head of strategy development for Sopot, mainly concentrated on the planned renovation of the train station and development of the surrounding area, but also presented plans for the preservation of the historic hippodrome in the city. Michał Banacki, chief of the department of European integration for Sopot, presented the joint sports centre project of the cities of Gdańsk and Sopot, which will be built with EU contributions, as well as the renovation and reconstruction of the ‘Opera Leśna’ project. To complete the city presentations, Alan Aleksandrowicz, president of the board of the Gdańsk Economic Development Agency (InvestGDA), highlighted the business developments planned for Gdańsk, including the Pomorskie Logistics Centre, Park Przemysłowo-Technologiczny Maszynowa (Maszynowa Industrial-Technology Park), and demonstrated how InvestGDA takes on the responsibility for much of the practical and time consuming development aspects usually left to the investor.

After a speech by Peter Nielsen, chairman of the Scandinavian Polish Chamber of Commerce, in which he stressed the huge potential of the TriCity area, the conference moved into the panel discussion section. The discussions were lively, covered several key issues and made a number of points. In no particular order these included the following: that there are more banks interested in financing municipal projects than a year ago; local authorities are reaching their level of maximum debt (60 pct of GDP) and so need to find alternative sources of financing such as PPP, bonds and concessions; EU funds constitute an important source of financing; developers with good projects are increasingly irritated with the banks, which are extremely reluctant to grant them financing (a fact countered by the banks, who say they are providing the financing, but adding that conditions are simply tougher and they have rules to follow); and the need for tax offices to follow up their declarations of good intent with the corresponding positive action.

The unusual nature of the current business environment was reflected in the conference, in that at the close of the event it was hard to draw an overall message from what had been said and heard. Yet there was a distinct feeling in the air that, while it is not the end of the financial crisis in Poland, nor is it the beginning of the end, but it is perhaps the end of the beginning. ν (RS)