Krakow Takes Poll Position As Poland's Technology Center
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WEEKLY 3,00 zloty (with 7% VAT) Published by: Jargon Media Sp. z o.o. Index Number: 236683 ISSN: 1898-4762 NO. 42 WWW.KRAKOWPOST.COM MARCH 6-MARCH 12, 2008 Krakow takes poll position as Poland’s technology center Border guards look to tighten ship Polish and Czech police have strengthened cooperation be- tween the two countries after joining the Schengen zone 2 Polish companies move to Ukraine Polish companies are quickly expanding to Ukraine. In the last year, Polish investments in the eastern neighbor were worth an estimated $640 mln 2 Quality of exported meat improving The quantity of Polish meat being sold to Russia is on the rise, says Artur Lawniczak, vice minister of agriculture 3 Peter and the Wolf: An Oscar story The Polish animation studio’s victory in the Academy Awards this year has set a new record 4 Schindler museum repairs begin The mayor signed a contract that would give Krakow 1.3 bln zloty for 16 development projects 11 The Krakow Post Business Supplement Check out our IBM and Accounting Plaza recently announced plans to expand their activities in Krakow. Anna Bienkowska Other tech companies that are in Kra- STAFF JOURNALIST kow include Google, HCL Technologies, special pull-out UBS, Electric 80 and Motorola. In addi- Krakow is rapidly becoming an attrac- tion, the popular Polish Internet portals tive place for international businesses to Onet and Interia have their home here. supplement on open or expand offices, especially tech- And CapGemini, Philip Morris and Shell nology and accounting companies. are among companies that have located In fact, so many tech companies are outsourcing offices here. Dutch business moving in or adding facilities that some Krakow Mayor Jacek Majchrowski local officials are dubbing the Krakow sees the IBM and Accounting Plaza deci- area the tech capital of Poland. sions as additional evidence of the wis- in Poland inside! The surge in international companies’ dom of the city’s decision to promote the interest in locating in Krakow has led to a academic prowess of the area as a way Reach your clients before boom in office-building construction. to attract high-tech and business-service they set foot in Krakow. IBM and Accounting Plaza caused ex- companies. Krakow has some of the best citement in the business community re- universities in Poland. The Krakow Post is cently by announcing they would expand Majchrowski noted that in 2002 Kra- currently available their activities in Krakow. They signed kow had only one top-flight office build- on board flights of leases with Globe Trade Center S.A. on ing whereas today it boasts several build- LOT, Brussels Feb. 21 for a lot more office space. ings that together offer more than 260,000 and Lufthansa IBM will now lease 14,000 square me- square meters of space. ters in three office buildings, a 21-percent In fact, Krakow is second only to War- airlines increase from the 11,000 square meters it saw in the amount of new office space had been using. It employs about 1,600 available, according to the consulting people in the area. company CB, which monitors the real-es- Accounting Plaza will lease about 3,000 tate market. square meters, a 66-percent increase from The demand for office space has led to the 2,000 meters it had been using. It em- a jump in the number of office develop- ploys about 350 people. ers in the Krakow area. Analysts project The leased space will be in Globe Trade over 15 new office buildings opening by Center’s three-building Aleja Armii Kraj- the end of 2009. owej office complex. See TECH on page 7 2 The Krakow Post POLAND MARCH 6-MARCH 12, 2008 R E G I O N A L N E W S Canada’s PM Stephen Harper Border guards tighten ship Anti-missile to welcome Czech counterpart Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper an- CIR deals likely nounced early this week he will meet with Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek in Ottawa on Feb. 28 and 29. The two leaders will discuss Czech-Canada coop- ready by eration in Afghanistan, as well as “broader interna- tional security and economic matters,” Harper said. “Canada and the Czech Republic share a commit- ment to a principled foreign policy that promotes the NATO summit values of freedom, democracy, human rights and the agence france-presse rule of law,” he said. “Our two countries enjoy a strong bilateral rela- tionship and we cooperate through multilateral di- Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topola- plomacy as reflected in the NATO-led mission in Af- nek said late last week that both principle ghanistan, and our work in organizations such as the agreements over a U.S. anti-missile base in Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe the country could be negotiated by an April (OSCE),” said Harper. 2-4 NATO summit in Bucharest. Topolanek will be accompanied by Czech Defense “The main agreement should be, I will Minister Vlasta Parkanova. not say signed, but I would say negotiated During his two-day trip, Topolanek will also visit Toronto, where he will attend the opening of an exhi- very quickly. On the smaller agreement, bition, and meet with representatives of the 80,000- the SOFA agreement, where there are still strong Czech-Canadian community. some technical problems, I think we will be This year marks the 40th anniversary of the Prague able to complete negotiations just ahead of Spring, in which thousands of Czechs fleeing totali- the NATO summit in Bucharest,” Topola- tarianism arrived in Canada. (AFP) nek said on Czech public television of the April meeting that will gather NATO lead- Ukraine minister rejects part ers and heads of state. of Russia gas deal The second, so-called SOFA agreement A top Ukrainian official late last week rejected – on rules for U.S. anti-missile base staff one of the terms of a gas deal this month with Russia to be stationed in the country – has lagged requiring the creation of a joint venture to distribute behind the main diplomatic deal. Russian gas in Ukraine, news agencies reported. U.S. and Czech negotiators should restart “We think there is no need to form a joint venture negotiations over it Wednesday in Prague to work on the internal market,” Deputy Prime Min- and continue until Friday, Defense Ministry ister Alexander Turchinov was quoted as saying by spokesman Andrej Cirtek told AFP. Interfax and RIA Novosti. He said Ukrainian company Naftogaz was capa- Deputy Czech Defense Minister Martin ble of working alone on the domestic market without Bartak last week suggested this part of the needing to hook up with Russia’s Gazprom. deal over U.S. plans to site a tracking ra- Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko and his dar in the Czech Republic, twinned with Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin reached a deal at 10 interceptor missiles in neighboring Po- the Kremlin last week to resolve a row over huge gas land, might only be tied up “within one or debts claimed by Gazprom, which had threatened to two months” if there was an “obliging ap- cut supplies to Ukraine. proach” from the Americans. Turchinov is a close ally of Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, who has criticized last week’s deal. In his televised remarks, Topolanek also The recent wrangling has raised concern in Euro- criticized Polish moves to seek U.S. help pean capitals as it echoes a gas pricing row in 2006 in modernizing its army as part of an anti- that led to disruptions across Europe after Gazprom missile shield deal, amid increasing fears cut supplies to Ukraine, the main transit route to the that attempts by Prague and Warsaw to co- EU. (AFP) ordinate their negotiations with the U.S. are unraveling. Slovakia may never recognize “Their [the Polish] negotiating position, Kosovo’s independence in this sense and fashion, is somewhat argu- Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico warned ear- able according to me, but I hope that we ly this week that his country may never recognize will get agreement with the Americans and Kosovo’s independence from Serbia. Polish-Czech border. that we will go ahead with this project to- Kosovo’s unilateral declaration of independence gether because it is in the interests of Euro- is in breach of international law and as long as that the krakow post Opolet. The binational patrols will be commanded by Such cooperation was initiated earlier by Polish and pean NATO members,” Topolanek said. situation remains Slovakia will not recognize it and police chiefs of the country in which they will be ac- German authorities in the cities of Zgorzelec, Poland, Asked whether the Czechs would sign a might never do so, Fico said on public television. Polish and Czech police forces have strengthened tive. The chiefs will also provide equipment and fuel and Goerlitz, Germany. In Cieszyn, police plan to ex- deal without the Poles, the Czech premier “I cannot exclude that situation,” he said. cooperation two months after the two countries joined for the patrols. The main work will be done by the two pand their collaboration to other areas and to open a said Prague had prepared for “various sce- “Historians compare what is happening today the Schengen zone, which allows citizens to cross the resident officers of the country while the third officer coordination center in a former border checkpoint narios.” in Serbia with what happened at Munich in 1938 border without any control. Last week joint Polish- will mostly serve as translator. For example, he won’t building.