New project from 'Telling the World About Poland' series launched

The project is a recurring campaign appearing in the world's leading newspapers and weeklies, and on the web, in which leading Polish and non-Polish authors, historians, scholars and politicians write about Poland and its affairs.

The latest edition, which is produced by the Institute of New Media and called ‘The Decade of Central Europe,’ concerns the many opportunities for growth that the region can look forward to once the coronavirus pandemic passes.

"Today, the world is seeking hope,” Eryk Mistewicz, president of the Institute of New Media, said. “Everyone has had enough of the pandemic. The media, regardless of their location, are looking for optimism, they want to present a post-pandemic world, a world of growth, joy, normality. We are directing their attention to the countries of Central Europe, to the growth potential of the region," 

This time around, world media will carry texts by, among other authors, Polish President Andrzej Duda, OECD head Angel Gurria, president of the Warsaw Stock Exchange Marek Dietl, prominent economists Branko Milanovic, as well as Professor Timo Baas, Austrian diplomat and historian Emil Brix, and the Czech economists Petr Sklenar and Pavel Riga.

"We have come a long, successful way,” President Andrzej Duda wrote in his text. “From a region that for a long time hardly existed in the minds of the main actors of the world's stage. A region that is one of the most dynamically developing areas in the world and aspires to be among the civilization centres." 

He also noted that "Central Europe can serve as an inspiration, to show how cooperation, the creation of joint initiatives and projects can bring about positive results." 

"It is thanks to them that, in these unfavourable times for us, Central Europe ceased to be a peripheral space between the West and the East, between imperial powers, and instead became a structure connected through multiple ties, aware of its interests and influencing the course of European affairs,” wrote the Polish president. “We have managed to emancipate Central and Eastern Europe, we are the subject of political and civilisation processes." 

"Central Europe is an excellent example of how freedom is a powerful creative force,” he continued. “Freedom, whose sisters are: economic freedom, entrepreneurship, self-government. They open up space for the implementation of bold ambitions and aspirations. Development comes with freedom. The three decades that have passed since the fall of communism, and the breakthrough in our region initiated by Poland’s Solidarity movement is a story of great economic success, social and civilisation advancement, which has rarely happened in the history of the world in such a short time. Poland and the whole of Central Europe are a fascinating testimony to the possibilities that freedom brings."

OECD Secretary General Angel Gurria wrote: "Poland will emerge from the pandemic crisis with fewer scars than many other countries. 

"Before the pandemic, Poland's economic performance was excellent: living standards were rapidly approaching that of the most developed OECD countries, unemployment and poverty rates were at historically low levels, well below the OECD average," Gurria continued. 

However, he remarked that like everywhere else, "the Covid-19 crisis has sharply disrupted the country's development. So far, Poland has done well in limiting economic losses and we expect GDP to have declined by 3.5 percent in 2020 and that it will grow by 2.9 percent in 2021 and 3.8 percent in 2022. 

“Thanks to the Polish government's fiscal and monetary support the economic slowdown related to the coronavirus pandemic was smaller than in most OECD countries," continued the OECD head.

Meanwhile, the president of the Warsaw Stock Exchange (WSE) Marek Dietl wrote that the WSE today is "one of the growth leaders discovered by investors from around the world."

"The classification of the Polish capital market in the group of developed markets attracts the attention of global investors,” he wrote. “This was clearly demonstrated by the largest floor debut in over a decade in the CEE, and one of the largest in the world last year, the debut of Allegro (over EUR 2 billion). High valuation, the presence of foreign technology funds among investors and the continued liquidity of trading in shares only confirm that the WSE is a fully developed market." 

Timo Baas, professor of macroeconomics at the University of Duisburg-Essen, wrote that "during the next decade, Central and Eastern European countries will significantly increase the per-capita income in this region and will catch up with the economies of southern Europe." 

"The high education levels, low unemployment and access to the EU's single internal market, reduce vulnerability to crises and make EU CEE countries attractive locations for FDI," he added.

The ‘The Decade of Central Europe’ launched as part of the ‘Telling the World About Poland’ project is implemented by the Institute of New Media with the support of the Warsaw Stock Exchange, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Polish Press Agency. All the texts from the project have been published on www.WszystkoCoNajważniejsze.pl
(PAP)