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Poland’s GDP is 24th in the EU but the economy is catching up fast with annual growth over 6% and inflation at only 2.6%. The only downside for Poland at the moment is that it’s highly skilled workforce has become its greatest export! This will limit potential for growth through manufacturing, therefore Poland needs manufacturing machinery and advanced technologies.

A good indicator of a country’s engineering sector is its production and use of materials – particularly steel. In Poland at the close of 2006, domestic production reached a peak of nearly six million tons, which accounted for 50% of the national requirement. This was mostly used in Poland’s growing vehicle production capacity and, moreover, its manufacture and supply of components to other Central European countries, the Czech Republic and Russia in particular.

In 2006 there were 27 major vehicle manufacturers and automotive suppliers in Poland, and 96% of their output is exported. The current top suppliers, in terms of market share in 2006, are: Fiat (46%); Opel (32%) and Volkswagen (15%).

Vehicle production in Poland is set to grow considerably in 2007 because of the €300 million investments made in new plant and equipment for the industry over the past year and a half.

This investment has also targeted a growing aerospace industry, with domestic and new-start companies restructured with high-technology aeronautics centres to serve the newly enlarging airports in the region.

Construction and civil engineering are booming with €100 million of construction work in the first six months of 2007. This has led companies such as Whirlpool, Bosch-Siemens, Electrolux and Merloni to invest heavily and expand production sites across Poland.

Poland’s subcontract mechanical engineering industry has similarly grown to supply components against competition from Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania.

Investment in new, sophisticated machine tools, equipment and services has grown to more than €100 million in 2006, around 50% of these are CNC machines imported from Europe. Smaller companies still prefer manual machinery and, mostly for cost-oriented reasons, these are locally produced or previously owned.