38% of Poles still live in rural areas - World Bank

The Polish economy has achieved a success, but the one aspect in which it is lagging behind Western Europe is the percentage of the population living in rural areas, said Hans Timmer from the World Bank at a panel discussion organized by the National Bank of Poland. In Poland, 38 percent of the population still lives in rural areas, while in developed countries the share is around 20 percent, he stated. Another panelist, Svetla Trifonova Marinova from the University of Aalborg, Denmark, urged Polish companies to invest in knowledge-based capital and remarked that Polish students studying in Denmark still lack teamwork skills, which are essential for economic success.