Polish television viewers were treated this week to a mouth-watering account of the luxurious lifestyle enjoyed by the Irish thanks to the economic boom. In the days following the broadcast, the Irish embassy and the Enterprise Ireland office in Warsaw received hundreds of phone calls from enterprising Poles eager to fill job vacancies in Ireland.
But if Polish workers are looking west, a growing number of Irish companies are viewing Poland as an ideal location for investment and expansion into a market of almost 40 million upwardly-mobile people.
On the last day of his visit to Poland today, the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, will fly to Ozarow, outside Warsaw, to inaugurate Europe's largest cement kiln - the result of a €60 million (£47.3 million) investment by Cement Roadstone Holdings. Through its subsidiary Cement Polski, CRH is already the largest supplier of cement to the Warsaw market and the company has invested €200 million in Poland during the past five years.
"Our target is to be the leading integrated building materials producer in Poland," said Mr Eamon Geraghty, president of Cement Polski.
CRH is one of more than 250 Irish companies who are active in Poland and this week's trade mission introduced a further 41 who are looking at investment opportunities. After an aggressive privatisation programme in the 1990s, about 75 per cent of the Polish economy is now in private hands, but it is the prospect of Poland's entry into the EU during the next few years that has been decisive for many Irish investors.
"It's typically Irish companies that are doing well out of the Celtic Tiger boom in Ireland, who are looking to the future, who see that there are opportunities in Poland that are being raised by the catch-up from eastern living standards to western living standards," said Mr Declan Ryan, who heads the Enterprise Ireland office in Warsaw.
Irish investment is welcome in Poland, not least because the country has a massive current account deficit that represents a constant threat to its currency, the zloty. Historical, cultural and religious parallels contribute to good personal relations between Poles and Irish but Poland's attractiveness as an investment location means that Irish companies face stiff competition from other foreign investors.
"If you want to do business with these guys in a country which has 40 million people, they know why you're coming and they demand that you treat the market with the kind of respect it deserves," according to Mr Ryan.
Irish investors in Poland range from software manufacturers and programmers to suppliers of agricultural equipment and construction firms. A huge building boom that saw construction in Poland grow by 10 per cent last year is expected to accelerate as prosperity increases, providing opportunities for Irish firms once the boom at home levels out.
Until now, most Poles bought their houses outright or joined co-operative savings societies to build apartment blocks. But the introduction of mortgage services as the banking system is modernised should lead to a rapid increase in home ownership.
AIB has acquired two banks in Poland, giving it a 20 per cent market share in the west of the country and the bank hopes to be among the top five players in the Polish banking market within 10 years. Before he returns to Dublin this afternoon, the Taoiseach will launch AIB's new $50 million venture capital fund for Poland - the latest step in the bank's strategy to expand its activities in Poland.
"The fund will be focused on small, but good quality Polish companies that have development potential and need capital for new investment, whether it's a new plant, a new acquisition or a new line of business," said Mr Michael Buckley, managing director of AIB's Poland division.
Enterprise Ireland helps Irish investors to navigate Poland's formidable bureaucracy and warns against legal pitfalls, but CRH's Mr Geraghty believes that the biggest obstacles facing Irish companies are more basic in nature.
"The most obvious difficulty is language. Polish is a difficult language and if there are language problems, there will be other problems too, such as trust," he said.
Enterprise Ireland advises investors to take a controlling interest in the shares, the management board and the supervisory board of any Polish company they invest in and Mr Ryan warns that poor research can lead to big trouble.
Poland's economy is expected to maintain its present annual growth rate of about 5 per cent over the next few years and, despite a crisis this week, it is politically stable. One potential source of instability lies in the uneven spread of the benefits of economic reform, with the rural, poorly educated population in the east of the country lagging far behind the rising prosperity of their metropolitan compatriots. Further delays in Poland's drive to join the EU could cause economic growth to slow down and as AIB's Mr Buckley points out, disrupt the calculations of many investors.
