Poland rolls out the red carpet for Indian industry

Poland on Monday announced a slew of incentives for Indian businesses setting up operations there hoping to entice the Indian industry into taking the bait.

Donald Tusk, the first non-Communist Prime Minister of Poland, who met industry captains here, said, “Being strategically located in Europe, Poland offers ideal investment opportunity to Indian entrepreneurs for setting up subsidiaries or exploring partnerships in diverse sectors, with access to European and global markets.”

In order to use business and collaborations to strengthen the bilateral relations, Tusk said, he decided to begin his three-day state visit to India from Bangalore. He added that India and Poland were only a few of those countries whose industry showed resilience and bucked the recent Great Recession of 2009 and grew their economies. He noted that the business environment was conducive to promote investments and joint ventures in both the countries.

Speaking at the PolishIndian Investment Forum, Tusk added, “As India's tech hub, Bangalore is renowned the world over for its domain expertise in software, science and aerospace. Poland has been the preferred choice of Indian IT majors TCS, Infosys and Wipro to locate their outsourcing operations.”

Recalling the historical and cultural ties between the two countries, Tusk said the freedom struggle in India through the non-violent movement of its Mahatma Gandhi had inspired the Solidarity movement in Poland during the 1980s to rid the country of decades of communist rule.

Poland's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) grew 1.8 percent in 2009 and 5.8 percent in 2008, while the rest of Europe, including Britain and the US, posted negative growth during the recession period.

“India is envy of the world today for its contributions through democratic process. Its impressive achievements in all spheres of growth, especially economy, science, technology, space and industry is an inspiration for Poland, which is trying to transform into a democratic and progressive country in the new world order,” Tusk said in his address.

Tusk on his three-day state visit to India, is set to hold delegation level talks with his Indian counterpart Manmohan Singh and will also call on President Pratibha Patil. Tusk is a first non-communist Polish Prime Minister to visit India on an official trip.

After his meeting with Singh, the two sides are expected to sign some agreements including one in the field of cultural exchanges.