Business looks to the future

This year's Futurallia, a multi-sector match-making conference, will attract 1,131 companies from Poland, France, and Belgium, as well as hundreds of delegates from China, the Czech Republic, Germany, Ireland, Canada, Italy and other countries.

"Futurallia is a great way of promoting Poland and Polish business. Companies that would perhaps never come to Poland will be here on business, but at the same time they will learn about the country," says Hana Cervinkova, president of Convention Bureau Wrocław, the company organizing this year's Futurallia.

"So far most of them have never been to Poland. These are companies from Western Europe, but also from Canada, China, Africa, North America, and Asia. They knew very little about the country," she adds.

The event will last three days and will be filled with high-powered half-hour face-to-face meetings so that participants will be forced to focus on the business at hand. "Each Polish participant will have 12 meetings with other companies from 40 countries from around the world. Initiating new contacts with these foreign companies is a huge benefit for Polish companies, who will constitute one third of the total number of firms at the event," says Cervinkova.

The aim of the event is to help firms develop new export markets, contact other businesses for partnership agreements, and establish financial, strategic or technological partnerships between firms worldwide. All participants will be entered into a catalog of over 1,000 companies from which each will choose potential business partners.