- Title: GERMANY/POLAND: Geman border town booms with Polish investment
- Date: 28th March 2008
- Summary: (CEEF) LOECKNITZ, GERMANY (RECENT) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF LOECKNITZ TOWN SIGN STREET IN CITY CENTRE SIGN IN EMPLOYMENT AGENCY READING: "WE ARE LOOKING FOR TELEPHONE RECEPTIONISTS, YOUNG AND OLD" SIGN ADVERTISING LAND FOR DEVELOPING IN GERMAN AND POLISH BUILDING PLAN IN GERMAN AND POLISH NEW HOUSE AND PLOT OF LAND SIGN READING: "PLOT FOR SALE" VARIOUS OF NEW HOUSES (SOUNDBITE) (German) LOECKNITZ RESIDENT, CHRISTIAN VOSS, SAYING: "Lots of Polish people come here to shop, like they say themselves, things have got more expensive in Poland. Before it was the Germans who went to Poland to do their shopping because it was cheaper, now it is the other way round, now it is cheaper here." (SOUNDBITE) (German) LOECKNITZ RESIDENT, ALFRED HILGENDORF, SAYING: "I don't see any disadvantages. I mean if we have a united Europe then we have to get used to there being no borders in Europe." (SOUNDBITE) (German) LOECKNITZ RESIDENT, REGINA KUMKAR, SAYING: "There are people here who cause a big outcry, not wanting Polish people here and scratching their cars and so on. Then they go and buy cheap cigarettes and petrol there. That's the stupidity of it, such people should stick to one thing or another, either they should say they are only German and just drive German cars and so on, or they have to pull themselves together somehow." JOINT POLISH-GERMAN SCHOOL SIGN READING, "EUROPA SCHOOL, GERMAN-POLISH SCHOOL" CHURCH AND TOWN HALL
- Embargoed: 12th April 2008 13:00
- Keywords:
- Topics: Economic News
- Reuters ID: LVA8R9S00I4QNHVFSG4I2C7E3HHF
- Story Text: While the rest of former East Germany is suffering from rising unemployment and poverty, one town on the Polish border is undergoing a boom - not due to Germans there investing in Poland, but because of Poles investing in Germany.
For years, Germans have driven across the Polish border to buy cheap cigarettes and alcohol and do cheap shopping. But nowadays it is Poles who are moving the opposite way to set up firms and to buy land and homes.
At first sight, Loecknitz looks like many other small East German towns: of its 3,000 inhabitants, one in four people is unemployed, cheap discount shops line its streets and the right-wing NPD party scored 18 percent in a recent election.
But in contrast to many towns in the former Communist East, where birth rates have slumped and apartments stand empty because jobless workers have moved to wealthier Western states, dozens of brightly-painted family homes have mushroomed in Loecknitz and with vacant land being cheap, new ones are being built all the time.
Marcin Baryliszyn is one of several dozen Polish entrepreneurs who have moved to Loecknitz, providing a boost to the small town near the Polish border, which is based in one of Germany's poorest regions.
Like Baryliszyn, many investors and Polish buyers come from the port city of Szczecin, Poland's seventh largest city, which is less than half an hour's drive from Loecknitz.
Loecknitz' mayor Lothar Meistring says that being close to Szczecin was the trump card, adding that property prices in his village were up to four times cheaper than in the nearby port city. He said that was bringing people to Loecknitz to both live and work.
"It's interesting. There is work here and the nice thing we are noticing is that the Polish companies who are coming here are outsourcing to German companies a lot," he said.
Although most of the new firms were one-man shops and only a handful of direct jobs for villagers had been created, Meistring said each Pole who built a factory or a home helped boost local construction firms, shops and schools.
He said those who were worried about losing their jobs to 'cheaper' Polish workers were worrying needlessly.
"My question to people who are afraid or worried that the Poles will take our jobs is: give me one example of one Pole who has taken a job away from a German - there are no such examples," he said.
Baryliszyn's company Fleischmannschaft, which makes meat and fish seasonings, already employs some 130 staff at Polish sites. In a few weeks, it will start producing in a new factory in Loecknitz and employ four Polish and two German staff.
"Production conditions in Poland have changed a lot recently.
Production costs have soared, and that is why our firm has decided to invest in Germany, where the costs are about the same as in Poland. In the meantime it is cheaper to invest in Germany, so we can enter new markets without the costs," he said.
Although wages were still more expensive than in Poland, cheaper property prices and branding would make the 1 million euro investment worthwhile, said Baryliszyn.
"Our investment in Germany also has marketing advantages, it means we can brand our products as 'Made in Germany'." - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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