Gdańsk
Gdańsk is among the few cities in the world which are destined to become global IT centres - in spite of the crisis.
Not long ago, the advisory company KPMG listed 31 of the most IT-friendly localities worldwide, putting the Polish port city alongside such metropolitan centres as Buenos Aires, Indianapolis and Cairo. Gdańsk had for the past ten years implemented a strategy of sustainable growth, with special focus on knowledge economy. Now, next to Warsaw and Wrocław, it will have Poland’s biggest concentration of IT, including such international big fish as Intel, Thomson Reuters and, for the first time in this country, IBM.
The KPMG report considered, among others, availability of high professionals and wage levels. And one of the biggest assets of Gdańsk turned out to be a residential area now being built on the site of the former shipyard. Młode Miasto – Young City – also provides the extensive office space that can become a real crucible for IT.
By the end of last year a number of international information concerns from the USA, Ireland, France and India had made considerable investments in Gdańsk, creating more than a thousand job openings for specialized engineers and programmists, with more to come. Paradoxically, also the weaker Polish national currency is contributing to the boom: investors are again getting more to their dollar.
Click on the audio icon to listen to the report by Elzbieta Krajewska.