Polish prime minister pushes for cementing Indo-Polish ties

Poland yesterday announced a slew of incentives for Indian businesses in a bid to attract Indian industry to set up operations in the East European nation.

According to Donald Tusk, the first non-communist prime minister of Poland, who met captains of Indian industry in Bangalore, due to its strategic location in Europe, Poland offered an ideal investment opportunity to Indian entrepreneurs to set up subsidiaries or explore partnerships in diverse sectors with access to European nd global markets.

To start the process of strengthening bilateral relations, Tusk said he decided to start his three-day state visit to India from Bangalore. He added that India and Poland were two of a small number of countries whose industry had resiliently bucked the recent Great Recession of 2009 to maintain steady growth. He said that business environment was now conducive to the promotion of investments and joint ventures in both the countries.

Speaking at the Polish Indian Investment Forum, Tusk added, "As India's tech hub, Bangalore is renowned the world over for its domain expertise in software, science and aerospace, Poland has been the preferred choice of Indian IT majors TCS, Infosys and Wipro to locate their outsourcing operations."

Recalling that the non-violent Indian freedom struggle led by Mahatma Gandhi had inspired the Solidarity movement in Poland in the 1980s to rid the country of decades of communist rule, Tusk emphasised the historical and cultural ties between the two countries.

Poland's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was up 1.8 per cent in 2009 as against 5.8 per cent in 2008, even as the rest of Europe, including Britain and the US, saw negative growth during the recession period.