Polish Business Survey
Mortgage insurance coming to Poland
Nationale-Nederlanden has announced that as from next year it will be selling policies by internet on the portal that it shares with the ING group. Furthermore NN will launch a new product on the Polish market towards the end of next year — mortgage insurance.
Letting off gas
Brussels has refused a Polish request not to liberalise its gas industry for three years following this countries EU accession.
Negotiations on the energy sector should not start until the middle of next year but the EU is already making its point clear. Poland claims that the transition period is necessary to bring its gas distribution system up to EU standards.
Hevelius is not for sale
The workforce from the Hevelius brewery in Gdańsk wants to buy the plant from its owners the óywiec group. At the end of last week they offered PLN11m — this money will come from the redundancy pay that the employers must give.
The brewery has however refused this offer as totally unacceptable.
Krzysztof Rut of Żywiec points to the fact that the company has invested around USD20m in technology alone. He states that the brewery is not for sale and will not be sold. The company is only prepared to talk about redundancy pay and details of how the brewery will be sold.
Not making a killing on defence
This week a commission made up of the treasury, economy and defence ministries will decide on the increased capital that the Huta Stalowa Wola steelworks is requesting.
Management of the steel plant is requesting PLN212.7m although it is clear that this much is out of the question.
Strike threatened
Unions from the fuels concern PGNiG have threatened to strike if an agreement is not reached by 19 December. They are demanding higher gas prices, that the company's debt is written off, extra capital and a State guarantee.
A further threat from the unions is to refuse to supply those companies with gas that have debts outstanding to PGNiG.
Unhappy on drugs
On 1 January certain chosen chemists will lose their monopoly to import specially ordered drugs which are not available in this country.
Chemists fought against this decision but it could turn out that it makes little difference to their lives. The biggest loser here will be Warsaw based Centrala Farmaceutyczna Cefarm (CFC) which is one of the most important importers of these medicines.
Up until now around 400 chemists could order these medicines and have their cost refunded by the local sickness fund. The market is now open to every chemist in Poland.