Business News Poland-week 21
- Stanisław Chao
- May 24, 2020
- 2 min read
Weekly briefing you important business news regarding Poland.
Polish energy giants abandon coal-fired power plant project. Has the country turned a corner?
Late on May 19, two state-run Polish utility companies, Enea and Energa, said that they were ending their involvement in the construction of a coal-fired power plant after PKN Orlen – Energa’s main shareholder – said it longer wanted to be part of the controversial 1GW project in its current form. In recent weeks, PKN Orlen had come to believe that the project would only be feasible if pursued as a gas plant.
Both Enea and Energa immediately announced a total write-down of one billion zloty (220 million euros).
Poland isn't making it easy for foreigners to fund coronavirus relief
Poland is targeting local banks and largely bypassing foreign investors in its unprecedented efforts to raise funds for virus relief. In the past two months, quasi-sovereigns issued 80 billion zloty ($19.3 billion) in state-guaranteed bonds -- more than twice the amount sold by the government at regular auctions this year. In the latest deal, state development fund PFR placed on Friday 15.2 billion zloty of five-year notes, offering a yield of about 70 basis points above similar length government securities. A day earlier, state lender Bank Gospodarstwa Krajowego sold 9 billion zloty of relief bonds.
Poland's UKE starts procedure to cancel 5G tender
The chairman of Poland's telecommunications regulator UKE, Marcin Cichy has unilaterally initiated the procedure to cancel the auction of 5G spectrum in the 3.6 GHz band. First announced in early March, the auction process was later suspended due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Ukraine, Poland discuss economic cooperation
The directors of departments of the economy ministries of Ukraine and Poland, Oleksiy Rozhkov and Jan Pawelec, discussed the dynamics of bilateral economic cooperation in the first quarter of 2020 during a videoconference on May 21, Ukraine's Embassy in Poland has reported on Facebook.
The embassy said that in the first quarter of 2020, Poland remained the fourth largest trading partner of Ukraine in the world after China, Germany and Russia with bilateral trade in goods exceeding $1.77 billion (an increase of 0.5% compared to the same period in 2019). Poland is also the second largest market in the world after China for Ukrainian exports of goods with more than $820 million (up 1%; 6.7% of total Ukrainian exports).
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