French companies top list of shrinking number of foreign investors

Direct foreign investment in Poland reached $7.15 billion last year, almost $3.5 billion less than in 2000, according to the Polish Foreign Investment Agency (PAIZ). "The fall is a result of the slowdown in privatization and the global economic downturn", said the director of PAIZ, Antoni Styrczula. Bureaucracy, unstable legal regulations and corruption also discouraged investors from Poland. As Peter Driscoll from PriceWaterhouseCoopers Polska indicated, Poland's share in attracting foreign investments in Eastern Europe dropped from 45% of all capital invested in the region to 30% within last two years, to the benefit of the Czech Republic and Hungary. The largest foreign investor in Poland, for the last year have been French companies whose investments exceeded $2.4 billion. French capital also accounted for the largest individual investments, including a $260 million investment by Credit Agricole and the purchase of the Rybnik power plant by Electricite' de France for $52 million. (Prawo i Gospodarka, p. 9) M.K.