Morawiecki signs agreement to continue work with GE

Poland’s Minister of Economic Development and Finance, Mateusz Morawiecki, has signed an agreement for strategic cooperation with American conglomerate General Electric (GE), the Minister announced to reporters on Thursday. “It's about supporting the development of the Polish economy and industrial modernization,” said Morawiecki, indicating that, as a result of cooperation with GE, Polish enterprises have more opportunities to create highly advanced and integrated products and services due to the global predominance of the company. He added, “the main objectives [are] strategic cooperation [and] building a lasting and long-term partnership between the Polish government and GE in the areas of sustainable energy and aviation.” He added that one of the points of the agreement the government aims to increase the share of local suppliers, particularly small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), to GE’s global supply chain. Morawiecki signed the agreement with the vice president of GE, John G. Rice, at the headquarters of the Engineering Design Center (the EDC), located in Warsaw. The EDC is Europe's largest design center and is a joint venture of the Institute of Aviation and General Electric. Morawiecki also stated that he expected the Warsaw University of Technology and Wrocław University of Technology, amongst other technical universities, to be key partners in development. Rice emphasized that the EDC has been a good example of the bilateral cooperation between GE and Poland, having run for 16 years. “Now, this enterprise has grown on a large scale. We [have] technologists, engineers, who work with the most sophisticated technologies,” he said. He stressed that GE is a technology company. “This is our heart, our foundation, in the twenty-first century, we want to build on this foundation, but we also want to create digital technologies. We want to become even more of a global company,” noting that GE has 6,500 employees in Poland. GE has invested $670 million in Poland, including $100 million in Research and Development.