Morawiecki planning to garner up business in Davos

Poland’s Minister of Development and Finance, Mateusz Morawiecki, in addition to Polish Foreign Minister Witold Waszczykowski, is attending the Davos Economic Summit this year. On Thursday, he told Polish reporters that he expects discussions to be fruitful for attracting more business investment to Poland. He claimed that discussions he had at last year’s summit were influential in bringing more investment from companies such as GE and Lufthansa to their operations in Poland. “I had some extremely promising discussions [in Davos, 2016] with representatives of the automotive sector, with a request for confidentiality [and] with companies in the financial sector and talks at the level of political and economic, among others, chief economist at rating agency S&P. ​​These discussions more translate into reality,” he told the press. Morawiecki stated that investors were closely following British PM Theresa May’s speeches at Davos, for signs as to whether or not her country was planning a hard or soft Brexit. In Morawiecki’s opinion, the hard exit could benefit the Polish financial industry. “[May’s speech on Wednesday] resulted in two statements from the banks HSBC and UBS, who are considering moving a significant part of their workforce outside London. [There are talks that] HSBC will shift some of its offices. Morawiecki will meet with representatives from Accelor Mittal, which has two steel mills in Poland, and also with leaders of the economic elite. The list includes IMF chief Christine Lagarde, EU Commissioners, finance ministers and heads of financial institutions.