Polish Business Survey
Uniprom favourite for publisher
The favourite to obtain an eighty percent holding in academic publishers WsiP is undoubtedly Uniprom and those close to the tender admit that it is likely that this company will get exclusive rights to negotiate with the treasury. Nonetheless two other contenders, Pearson and Polskie Ksiazki Edukacyjne, are not giving up.
Costly plan for NATO
The defence ministry will be signing a contract on 10 October with consulting companies Neito Expension, Prokor, Weideplan as well as the Mostostal Warszawa consortium and Unitecu who will be working out a plan on how to bring Polish military installations up to NATO standards. The cost of this investment will be at least PLN1.4bn.
Plans to bring the airfields up to NATO standards will be the responsibility of the US Neito Expension and the Polish Prokor whilst the fuel bases will be handled by the German Waideplan and the ports by the Polish Mostostal Warszawa and Turkish Unitec. Once the consultants have decided what they want, their plans will be forwarded to Brussels to NATO s HQ. Once they have been accepted then the subcontractors will be chosen.
The modernisation process will be begin in 2001 and last until 2008. The plan will cost almost PLN1.4bn, twenty percent of which will come from the state and the rest from NATO.
No safety through competition
Western experts who at the request of the labour ministry examined the proposals of the Safety through competition plan have criticised it. They argue that some of the conditions of the plan are likely to damage the free market rather than protect it.
DIY expansion
The German OBI has announced that it intends to open thirty three DIY stores across Poland in the next five years. The company currently has 17 stores and hopes to increase the amount to fifty. It estimates the cost of this expansion at DEM660m which will come from the German mother company and bank credits.
As in other countries, OBI works on a franchising principle. It is however a somewhat unusual form of franchising as the management company belongs 100 percent to the concern.