Gloomy times ahead as second porcelain manufacturer files for bankruptcy

The board of Poland's biggest porcelain ware producer, Fabryki Porcelitu Tul owice, has decided to place the company in the hands of the receiver. With d ebts of zl.32 million, it now seems likely that Tulowice will have to lay of f 680 workers. According to Mieczyslaw Ramczykowski, a member of the Tulowic e board, the company owes zl.17 million to Social Insurance Company ZUS. Ear lier this month Tulowice's accounts were frozen and its gas supplies were cu t off. Tulowice's difficulties come as a surprise, since only last year it w as looking forward to better times after introducing a new high-tech process that made porcelain production ten times faster. It was also last year that the firm was awarded the prestigious Teraz Polska prize for its outstanding Atena product. At the time it was even talking of a foray onto the hotel mar ket. But in a clear sign of the gloomy prospects for the sector, on October 8 the country's second biggest and oldest porcelain producer, ZPS Pruszkow, also went into receivership. (Rzeczpospolita, p. B4) J.K.