That is how all economies grow. It is unnecessary to remove credit from Poland. You say labor is educated, for example. Is that also not their merit?

Didnt USA benefit from mostly not being bombed during ww2? Didnt Germany benefit from cheap Russian gas and educated immigrants after 2008 crisis in EU? In the end, we can keep going back looking for pthers to thank but the country did it, and it is fair to say so.

P.S. I also live in Poland, not Polish. I also lived in Berlin, and I dont think the salaries are always so different.

FDI is a legit way of increasing an economy's size and health. The fact that Poland created a safe country for foreign investments is great merit.

> It's a great place to live, genuinely. But calling this "Poland's economy" is like calling a McDonald's franchise "your restaurant"

Economically? Yes, if you ignore the fact that we're one of the most overworked populations in the first world and pretty much all low-level jobs(restaurant/call office/etc) have abysmally poor working conditions.

Culturally? Developed cities in Western/Northern Poland and Warsaw, sure. But everywhere else is shades of shitty and if you're LGBT+ a third of the country has legislation against your very existence.

Poland has made a lot of progress but calling it a great place to live is - while not altogether untrue - a statement of privilege more than universal reality.

Yeah I think this what most miss. FDI is good, great if eventually lead to domestic brand to capture more % of value, like Asian Tigers. I'm not sure if the case in EU, some GDP accounting can grossly conflate actual FDI contribution, i.e. when PRC captured $6 labour for each iphone assembled but it was counting full device cost $100s towards GDP instead of just value add. Same concept as Ireland GDP & corporate tax laundering.

Cursory search shows 1% companies in Poland are foreign enterprises which drive ~40% of output, ~30% of workforce and ~70% of exports. These are companies that will dip if Poland gets too expensive or geopolitics, in the meantime what is Samsung or Hyundai or Huawei of Poland. At end of day, countries need national champions committed to their own midstream industries who end up capturing the rents.

foreign dollars and euros being spent in the country definitely counts as growth no matter how you slice it and regardless whether you like it or not.

Let’s be honest. If anyone would be building a brand new company in Poland or any other country with the intention of raising capital or IPOing they would still incorporate in the US or a handful of other countries. So any successful Polish company would count as American/ German / Singaporean / etc anyway.

My understanding is that Poland is also seeking smart win-win arrangements with some of these foreign sources. For example, Poland has initiated several big equipment buys from South Korean military suppliers on the condition that most of the manufacturing is done in Poland and that there is technical sharing for future self-sustainment.

It's basically importing expensive R&D for "free" while helping establish a heavy industrial base (which has also proven very fruitful for South Koreans). I'm sure there are other examples like this. You also get a better trained workforce, and then the import of the technical knowledge later where it is slower to digest but with the ability now to turn that knowledge into working production.

It's the first step to building the top companies: You first need enough agglomeration of that labor so that, whenever there's a recession, you can scoop up some of that labor for a startup.

And as demand of those cheap engineers go up, salaries rise. It's not just Poland: Go see what happens to engineering salaries in, say, Spain vs Berlin. You find Capgemini opening offices, because the labor is that cheap. New grads making as little as 20k in some regions.

So compared to that, having big tech moving over and paying over local market rates, and expanding enough so salaries end up rising is much better than the alternative: They don't come, there's no money, the engineers emigrate, and the country becomes poorer.

What kind of dev salaries are you seeing in Poland?

I have family in Poland, they are from smaller villages and they ALWAYS complain about EU and the economy. I wonder if things are similar in large cities.

First: if you compare rates (salary, wages,...) you also always must consider rents, cost of living etc.

Second: You can't just pick Berlin for comparison.

Third: Take away foreign owend companies from Berlin, you get a cheap, dirty poor capital.

How do you think China grew so much after 1990? A lot of FDI, a lot of protectionism. And look where they are today.

> Western Europe and the US built their economy in Poland, because the labor is educated and cheap. > There are almost no globally competitive Polish companies.

Same issue in all southern and eastern European countries.

Poland has also the lowest fertility rate of the EU. This growth came at a cost and may be short-lived when the cheap workforce dies out with no replacement.

Providing educated labor is a kind of build.

saying foreign investment is a bad or invalid growth strategy is wild

are you one of those anti-trade people where the only real ""growth"" doesn't involve foreigners

Allegro is Polish, large and successful, no?

But I only know of them because they bought some successful small companies in my country and shut them down to reduce competition, for which they are universally hated around here.

There are plenty of polish companies, but like in Germany many are more in the middle of the spectrum, so they might be well known in their sector but not much beyond. I've seen e.g. plenty of polish building materials and furniture across shops on western Europe.

You gotta have "A" to do "B".

This is one way of having "A" that isn't "massive internal natural resources" like USA, China, Russia, Colonialism, or Oil States (I'm sure I missed other kickstarters here).

It terms of the IT sector there is not much difference to the rest of the Europe. America has dominated the field, China is catching up, especially in global giants category.

I don’t live in Poland, but this is like comparing a thriving metro area to Silicon Valley. Just because the metro isn’t coming up with the latest ideas doesn’t mean it doesn’t have its own economy - it’s just different. From my outsider perspective this is very much a positive step for Poland and should be celebrated.

> There are almost no globally competitive Polish companies.

there ought to be, but EU capital is taking bad bets. it would be the easiest early stage play in the world

I don't think that's a good way to think about the modern economy. Large companies aren't American, German or Polish just because they're founded in one place. The surplus value that a country like Poland adds or that all the producers in the supply chain of Apple or Tesla add are real and contribute to their national economies.

Singapore isn't a "fake rich" country because most of the companies that have settled down there are international businesses, the money is as real as anywhere else, so are the jobs. Always strikes me as a bit atavistic when people talk about companies as if they're owned by a country despite the fact that the value creation and supply chains run through two hundred countries.

just like israel. even india is similar

Reading the article it attributed institutional strength to poland, which is great, but it sounds like this was something the west decided not to sabotage. The oligarchs taking over in e.g. Russia was engineered by the clinton administration and Larry Summers as "shock therapy" when the soviet government fell.

> Western Europe and the US built their economy in Poland, because the labor is educated and cheap.

Yes, for the benefit of their stock markets and at the expense of their own populations.

A rising tide lifts all luxury yachts.