Business scope for Polish companies in India

Mar 10, 2023

Poland is the seventh largest export destination of India in the European Union and the largest destination in Central Europe. India’s trade with Poland more than doubled in the decade ending 2020 and in just one year (2021), the two-way trade grew 1.5 times to USD 4.3 billion. Yet, there is untapped trade potential in software services, online education, infrastructure, medical devices and other emerging sectors.

In order to explore this untapped trade potential, WTC Mumbai organized an interactive meeting with an in-bound trade delegation of 33 members from Poland. The delegation was led by Ms. Iwona Jabrzyk from Uczelnia ASBIRO, which is a private university established in Poland 20 years ago by entrepreneurs for entrepreneurs. All the members of the faculty of this University are entrepreneurs or business practitioners. The members of the business delegation represented  IT, software services, road signage devices, infrastructure, medical devices (including radiology equipments), online education, automobiles, consumer products, amber products and other sectors.

Mr. Damian Irzyk, Consul General, Consulate General of Poland in Mumbai delivered the keynote address at the session. He said, “In recent years, there has been tremendous growth in visa applications from Indians to visit Poland, which reflects increasing partnership in trade, tourism, film production, services, education and other areas of cooperation. The launch of the direct flight service by Polish Airline LOT between Warsaw and Mumbai in May 2022 has given renewed momentum to people to people ties.”

Mr. Irzyk expressed satisfaction about the growing commercial ties between both countries in mining and emerging technology areas. He said, “Poland is closely working with West Bengal in the area of coal mining technology. Indian IT companies such as TCS and Infosys are partnering with Poland in emerging sectors such as artificial intelligence, research and development. I am confident that commercial relation will grow further with the launch of direct flight service from Mumbai.”

Earlier in his welcome remarks, Dr. Vijay Kalantri, Chairman, WTC Mumbai raised hope that the current trade volume can be doubled in the next few years if we exchange business delegation regularly. Highlighting other areas of collaboration, Dr. Kalantri mentioned, “Food processing, mining technologies, digital technology and defence manufacturing are other areas of collaboration in the industrial sectors. Recently, Government of India has auctioned several coal blocks for mining, which presents huge opportunity for Polish companies to partner with Indian miners on mining technology. Apart from this, both countries need to strengthen ties in cultural exchange, tourism and film production.”

In her remarks, Ms. Rupa Naik, Executive Director, WTC Mumbai suggested that WTC Mumbai can collaborate in the area of entrepreneurship and skill development with Uczelnia ASBIRO, the private business University of Poland for Entrepreneurs.

The programme was followed by B2B networking session between the members of the Polish trade delegation and Indian delegates.

(From left to right) Ms. Rupa Naik, Executive Director, WTC Mumbai; Ms. Iwona Jabrzyk, Uczelnia ASBIRO; Dr. Vijay Kalantri, Chairman, WTC Mumbai; Mr. Damian Irzyk, Consul General, Consulate General of Poland in Mumbai and Mr. Yogesh Joshi, Consultant, Tata Group