Poland comes out relatively unscathed in 2003 fall in global FDI

Last year, the fall amounted to 20%, which was 3% more than in 2002. The Central and East Europe region was also affected as the inflows amounted to $21 billion in 2003, while a year earlier the figure stood at $31 billion. "Investments in the eight accession countries dropped from $23 billion to $11 billion. A large share of the drop was due to concluding privatization processes in the Czech Republic and Slovakia," said Zbigniew Zimny, co-author of the report. In Poland in comparison to neighboring countries the situation looks bright, as the country received $4.2 billion in FDI in 2003, against $4.1 billion a year earlier. It was expected that the investment boom would take place after the accession but, "Such things do not happen overnight. The effects will be visible in about a year or so," said Jarosław Pietras, president of the European Integration Committee (UKIE). (Puls Biznesu, p. 11) M.M.