The Pomorskie Voivodeship has started collaborating with the World Bank to assess how foreign direct investment (FDI) attracted by the ‘Invest in Pomerania’ campaign can support local development and to formulate a new strategy for economic promotion and FDI attraction for the region for 2021-2027.
Analysis by the World Bank will help the regional authorities of the voivodeship better understand the impact of foreign investors attracted by the ‘Invest in Pomerania’ campaign on the local economy, especially in the areas of new technologies and quantity and quality of jobs The World Bank will also measure the campaign’s performance against other investment promotion agencies elsewhere and provide recommendations for further improvements of the agency’s services.
“The first research conducted by PwC and Instytut Badań nad Gospodarką Rynkową in 2010 (“Analysis of investment attractiveness of the Pomorskie Voivodeship), is the basis for the strategy of FDI attraction and development of Invest in Pomerania. This strategy has helped build a solid foundation for FDI attraction, and even though FDI has declined in 2020/2021 due to COVID-19, we continued to grow. In 2020/2021 alone we have successfully embedded 30 new investors and generated more than 3,600 jobs. But we understand that we need to reevaluate ourselves and adjust our strategy to maintain our investment competitiveness in the dynamically developing global economy,” says Łukasz Żelewski, President of the Pomerania Development Agency.
After the assessment an evaluation report will be published that sets out concrete recommendations based on a mixed-methods approach to research and analysis, providing analytical evidence for a new FDI strategy for the Pomorskie Voivodeship from 2021-2027, as well as a subsequent action plan.
“Our new cooperation with the Pomorskie Voivodeship is a unique task, since very few subnational investment promotion agencies have been courageous enough to rigorously assess their impact on investment attraction. We hope that our joint work will further support the region in achieving its ambitious development objectives for the benefit of people, firms, and its local economy. We are certain that Pomorskie’s approach to analyzing and evaluating the investment promotion strategy can be a good practice example for others worldwide,” says Marcus Heinz, World Bank Resident Representative for Poland and the Baltic States.
As part of the study, the World Bank will carry out a quantitative impact assessment, conduct interviews with key stakeholders, investors and local entrepreneurs, as well as conduct an IPA (Investment Promotion Agency) benchmarking exercise. This will be supplemented by analysis of relevant global and regional FDI trends to frame the context in which the strategy will be developed, along with a general assessment of risks and opportunities associated with global and regional FDI trends.
“The story of ‘Invest in Pomerania’ started a few years before 2011, with a concept for a project that would strengthen the capacity of the region to attract FDI projects. The idea was driven by the Agencja Rozwoju Pomorza (ARP), which has served as a regional investor assistance center. Over the last decade, ‘Invest in Pomerania’ has spread a unified message about Pomorskie and has become a one-stop-shop for all investor-related services. They have successfully completed 135 projects and helped generate nearly 20,000 jobs. We are confident that the report will show just how impactful this project has been and also be a guide for the region and ‘Invest in Pomerania’ to create a stronger strategy to maintain our investment competitiveness,” says Mieczysław Struk, Marshal of the Pomorskie Voivodeship
The report will identify potential target sectors, segments and value chains at the regional and national level that represent strong investment opportunities for foreign investors. The report will contain a proposed list of several target sectors that are ‘ready for promotion’, along with short sector profiles summarizing the key strengths and elements constituting the Pomorskie Voivodeship’s competitiveness in these sectors vis-à-vis competing regions and countries.
“The business services sector is today one of the fastest-growing areas of the Polish economy. Its importance as a local specialization is growing in the Tricity. Over the last five years, we have recorded the highest employment growth in the region – up 88.4% – which has created over 14,000 jobs. Due to the current trends, we can assume that the Tricity will take the leading position among the centers where the sector is a local specialization in 2022,” says Janusz Dziurzyński, chairman of the ABSL management board.
The report will also have a proposed list of 3-4 ‘promising sectors’ for potential future promotion along with a short summary of the most significant regulations, policies and institutional factors which are constraining private sector investment from the FDI perspective and a list of reform recommendations for regional and national government authorities to strengthen the investment potential of these sectors.
The report will also provide a framework for monitoring and evaluating the activities of the strategy. It will also define an indicative timetable for implementing the recommendations, as well as suggestions for partners at various levels of administration and in the private sector with whom the IiP may cooperate in order to implement the proposed actions.
The report will be delivered by May 2022.
