Christian Wenande
March 25th, 2014

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Danish companies will in the future be able to profit much more from Poland, a country that towards 2020 is set to become one of continent’s fastest growing export markets.

Poland number seven
New calculations by Eksportrådet, a committee under the control of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, expect the Polish export market to grow by 11.8 percent every year to be worth 33.3 billion kroner by 2020. This would make the eastern European country Denmark’s seventh most important export country and see it overtake France and the Netherlands.

Poland has – unlike other EU countries – had a positive growth rate since 2009. Lars Christensen, the chief analyst at Danske Bank, explained to Børsen that Poland benefited from devaluating its currency and implementing tax breaks to spark private consumption in 2008 .

EU sparked export to Poland
Jacob Warburg, the chief economist at Eksportrådet, said that one of the main reasons for the amazing growth is the “catch-up-effect”.

“At the time Poland became a member of the EU, they had a big need to modernise,” Warburg told Børsen. This included all sectors: manufacturing, agriculture, retail, infrastructure, just to mention a few.

At the same time, exports exploded as private consumers became able to afford the quality products supplied by Danish companies.

Grene top the curve in Poland
The Danish agriculture equipment producer Grene is one such company. It has been a steady exporter to Poland since the country became a EU member in 2004.

“The first years after Poland became a member of the EU, we had an annual growth rate [in exports to Poland] of over 20 percent,” Ove Krogh, the economic director of Grene in Poland, told Børsen.

The company’s Polish department has increased exports from 230 million kroner in 2005 to 500 million kroner in 2014.

Support by the state
The trade minister, Mogens Jensen (S), is confident that Denmark, which already has a big trade department at the Danish embassy in Warsaw, is well equipped to capitalise on the growing demand for exports. He is due to participate from a big promotion of Danish companies in Poland in May.