At the same time, the biggest success of the Polish Investment Zone is the maintenance of entrepreneurs’ current employment obligations. In this difficult period, when many companies considered the reduction of employment, zone entrepreneurs have fulfilled their commitments and maintained the current workplaces. This is the common success of the government, which provided necessary support, and of entrepreneurs, who fulfilled their promise and maintained the workplaces.

Polish Investment Zone in 2020

Compared to the year 2019, the value of investments dropped slightly by 2% year to year, but the number of projects under the Polish Investment Zone (PSI) rose by 4% in 2020. This illustrates stable growth.

The coronavirus pandemic slowed down the number of issued support decisions at the beginning of the year, but we saw a strong rebound last quarter. Only the last two months brought 86 new projects with the value of ca. 6.1 billion PLN and with 1,960 declared new workplaces.

The biggest number of new decisions in 2020 was made in Special Economic Zones (SSEs) in Katowice (58 decisions), in Pomerania (48 decisions) and Łódź (38 decisions) – altogether, they recorded almost 40% of projects worth 46% of total zone investments in 2020.

The activity of the Polish MSME sector is growing significantly – in 2020, the share of the Polish MSME sector in the number of projects rose to the annual average of 64% (as compared to 60% in 2019). The declared value of investments was 17% (15% in 2019), and the share of SMEs in new workplaces rose to 27% (19% in 2019).

Facilitations for investors in medium-sized cities losing their social & economic functions bring results. In 2020, 25% of new investments were located in these areas (19% of investment outlays and 23% of new workplaces).

Eastern Poland develops dynamically, too – these five provinces attracted 106 new investments together in 2020 (29% of all investments in Poland, with 26% in 2019) with the value of 2.2 billion PLN.

Entrepreneurs are willing to make the first investment in the zone, but they also reinvest in operating plants; this shows that Poland is a good place to design the long-term development of companies. In 2020, reinvestments accounted for more than one half of all investments (55%) and generated more than two thirds of the value of expenses (68%). In 2019, they accounted for 45% of all investments and 48% of the declared value of investments.

The biggest number of investments – 35 – occurred in the transport means sector, and their declared value was 4 billion PLN and brought 1,768 new workplaces in 2020.

The Polish Investment Zone is a tool for the effective development of Polish companies – entrepreneurs from Poland recorded 279 investments worth 6.3 billion PLN and 2,895 new workplaces in 2020. But the zone manages to attract direct foreign investments, too – in terms of value, companies from Germany ranked second and companies from Korea ranked third behind Polish companies.

Polish Investment Zone since the beginning of operation

 

Since the beginning of operation of the Polish Investment Zone in September 2018, 805 investment decisions have been issued; their declared value was 36.2 billion PLN and they brought 14,755 new workplaces.

The leaders of investments are the Katowice SSE, Euro-Park Mielec SSE and Pomeranian SSE.

The Polish Investment Zone has functioned for over two years since June 2018. It is based on supporting companies from the industry sector and modern services by granting tax discounts for the performance of new investments.

Tax exemption is available not only – as previously – in special economic zones, but in the entire territory of Poland, regardless of the size of the company. However, SEEs play a crucial role in the PSI system, managing its individual parts.

Currently we are working on the introduction of lower thresholds of entry into the PSI, i.e., minimum required investment expenses, which should make it much easier for investors to join the zone and accelerate the pace of economic development after the lifting of the pandemic state. We hope that the proposed changes will additionally reinforce the positive results of the Polish Investment Zone and stimulate the investment activity of MSMEs, which are particularly important for Polish economy.