Poland Infrastructure Report Q4 2008: Industry Research Report

Poland Infrastructure Report Q4 2008

Published Date: November 2008

Published By: Business Monitor International

Page Count: 87

Order Code: R302-4637

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Preparations for the Euro 2012 Football Championship continue to dominate Poland’s infrastructure andconstruction sector. Work is soon to get underway on the stadiums for the event with those interested inthe tender of the Baltic Arena in Gdansk currently submitting their bids. Foundation work on the NationalStadium has already begun with the Polish engineering company Pol-Aqua stating that it is fully capableof completing the work. The question of timeframe still hangs over Poland’s preparation for Euro 2012.In September 2008, Reuters reported that UEFA, the football governing body in charge of the EuroChampionships , would rebuke the two hosts (Ukraine is co-host of the event) for the slow pace ofpreparations. There are worries that Poland and Ukraine will not be ready on time, although UEFA hasannounced that it will not be withdrawing the event from them yet. In a bid to speed up construction,Poland has approached China, and two consortia - namely China Metallurgical Group Corporationand China Overseas Engineering Group - have expressed an interest in the Baltic Arena constructionproject.

Work is underway to prepare Poland’s infrastructure for the influx of visitors. In September, the PolishMinister of Infrastructure, Cezary Grabarczyk, announced that Euro 2012-associated investments for thePoland’s railway sector would stand at EUR9bn (US$12.7bn). BMI notes that a number of large railinfrastructure projects have been launched in the last quarter, including refurbishment of the railway linebetween Legnica and Wroclaw, as well as a US$630mn loan for the extension of railway line E65, whichconnects Poland’s Baltic coast across to the country’s border with Slovakia and the Czech Republic. Newdevelopments that could change the shape of Poland’s railway sector have also been announced, with thePolish government approving an environmental impact study on a high-speed railway line, which will runfrom Warsaw through Lodz to Kalisz. Construction on the project is due to begin in 2014 and to becompleted in 2019. Unfortunately, it has not all been good news for Poland’s railway infrastructure; inAugust 2008, the public tender for the second metro line in Warsaw was cancelled after it was decidedthat the bids for the tender were not economically viable.

Poland continues to search for ways to diversify its power infrastructure away from its heavy relianceupon thermal power. The country is the biggest coal burner in Europe, but must diversify quickly if itwishes to meet the EU’s green strategy to reduce carbon emissions by 20%. Poland’s green credentialshave been boosted in the last quarter with a number of wind parks being announced. MartiferRenewables began constructing two wind parks with a total installed capacity of 28 megawatts (MW) inAugust 2008. Danish wind-power producer EuroTrust and Danish wind-power firm Agrowind havesigned up for a 400MW wind-farm project in Poland, and in July 2008 Zbigniew Prokopowicz, the chiefexecutive of Polish Energy Partners, announced in an interview with Reuters that the company plannedto install 700MW of wind capacity by 2012.

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