Polish Business Survey
PKP cancels order
State railway operator PKP has cancelled the purchase of 19 of 50 locomotives that it ordered in 1996 from Wrocław based Adtranz Pafawag. The rest of the contract has been renegotiated and is now worth PLN600m.
Adtranz will also have to pay a fine of PLN100m to PKP for the delay which caused the cancellation.
AIG to offer mortgages
AIG Bank Polska has gone into the mortgage market which will be offered through its own agents and those of AIG Credit and Amplico Life. Clients of Amplico Life who have long term savings plans will be able to use them to guarantee the loan. The bank accepts that the attractiveness of mortgages depends on a large degree to interest rates and believing that no changes are likely within the next year chose this moment to launch the product.
Fiat s zone now up
Fiat and General Motors have announced that from 2002 they will begin the production of diesel engines. Each year the Fiat group is investing around USD100m in Poland, with sales around PLN9bn, PLN4bn of which is for export.
However despite the fall in home sales there has been no increase in exports this year.
From today the extension of the Katowice Special Economic Zone to include the Fiat factory at Bielsko-Biała comes into force. This will give firms in this part of the zone a tax free period for ten years followed by a 50 percent break to 2016. Nonetheless there is little time as from the beginning of next year no-one will have the right to any breaks at all if they have not already set up shop.
No drinks here
Two attempts to sell the Lubusz brewery have ended in failure and it now seems as though the plant will close next year. Hopes had been placed in the Czech Drinks Union although this company pulled out because of the state of indebtedness of Lubusz which was declared bankrupt last year with debts of PLN18m and assets of around PLN6m. The largest debt of PLN9m was to the treasury.
Media Park offers shares
Wrocław based Media Park has announced that it intends to open thirty thematic net services for which it is seeking branch investors who will take between 25 and 49 percent of the shares.
Hospitals to be privatised
The treasury has announced a plan to privatise parts of the health services within the next five years. It is believed that insurance companies would be interested in seeking to obtain the best hospitals for their own clients.
Stocks looking promising
The stock market is likely to be kept busy with up to twenty new share issues to be made this year. This week investors can subscribe to future emissions of companies like Compensa, Kruszwica, Leta amd ZPUE. In the first two cases the strategic investors, Cereol with Hamburg-Mannheimer and Mostostal Export are likely to take most, if not all, the stock.
Vienna Life now in business
The Austrian insurance concern Wiener StŠdtische has started selling life policies on the Polish market under the Vienna Life brand. It aims to be in the black within three years. It entered Poland two years ago with an investment of ATS198m, largely in the Heros company in which it has a 71 percent stake.