Polish Professor discusses benefits of EU funds to polish SME's
Tue, 30 Apr 2013 15:31:00 BST
The Emerging Markets Research Group was pleased to welcome Professor Janusz Świerkocki, Faculty of Economics and Sociology, University of Lodz, Poland, who presented a seminar titled “The significance of EU structural funds for the Lodz region”. Lodz has a population of approximately 800,000 and is located in the centre of Poland. The University of Lodz is one of Poland’s most prestigious universities and has 40,000 students. The Faculty of Economics and Sociology has partnered the University of Huddersfield Business School since Poland joined the European Union in May 2004.
Professor Świerkocki talked about the structural funds offered by the EU for financial support of SMEs in the Lodz region, which are offered as part of the EU cohesion policy to reduce regional economic and social disparities across Europe. The speaker presented an analysis of how these funds are used by SMEs in Lodz through investment projects such as infrastructure, modernisation and development of production capacity, and non-investment projects such as R&D and entrepreneurship.
Application of the projects was not very difficult for most companies and has resulted in some improvements in productivity, quality of services, employability, domestic sales, and, for some companies, innovation and IPR. However, since the Lodz region depends mostly on SMEs, the EU structural funds cannot be a decisive tool for accelerating economic growth in that region as well as other economically weaker regions. Professor Świerkocki concluded by highlighting that the achievement of the objectives of cohesion policies through EU structural funds in economically weaker regions is debatable, and encouraged providing money directly to businesses rather than investing in huge infrastructure programmes in such regions.
