Podkarpacie region’s aviation industry is taking off - FT

Growing investment in the Podkarpacie voivodship, specifically that concentrated in the area between Rzeszów and Mielec, has enabled it to become one of Europe’s most promising “aviation valleys,” according to a report published on Tuesday in the business publication the Financial Times (FT). The cluster of aviation manufacturing plants now produce exports valued at $ 2 billion, compared with only $250 million in 2003. The valley really took off in 2003, when Marek Darecki, the head of WSK Rzeszów, set up an association to link the facilities, business associations and educational institutions that support the aviation technology sector throughout the region. Today there are 14 large international companies, as well as 20 mid-sized companies. In 2017, Safra, partnering with Rolls-Royce, will open another aviation engine parts plant that is expected to do well. “If a company came here, invested, built a factory and now it is building another, it means it works,” Darecki said in an interview with the FT. However, some feel the region could do even better by re-positioning itself as a designer of components -- not only as a manufacturer/exporter. “This is a moment when Rzeszów should stop paying the cheap labor force card,” said Łukasz Wąsikiewicz, a manager at PwC. He feels it’s time “the Valley” moved up the value chain. The area currently receives over PLN 500 million under the Innolot funding program, designed to encourage cluster start-ups in Poland. Today, the region employs 24,000 people in businesses related to aviation parts production, according to the FT report.