A ring road, a roads network and an airport

Radom tempts investors

An educated - and at the same time cheaper - workforce, a long tradition of precision engineering, and a convenient location in the centre of the country. The city of Radom was able to remind investors of its most important assets during the city's first urban economic conference organised by Eurobuild Conferences

The ‘Precision Investment' conference took place on October 20^th, in a place which has a particularly important significance for the new image of Radom: the newly finished Zespół Szkół Muzycznych (Music School Complex). This is where around 100 participants, including investors, developers, lawyers and city officials, discussed the investment potential of the city. The meeting was organised by Eurobuild Conferences, part of the Eurobuild CEE media group. In his welcoming speech the mayor of Radom, Andrzej Koszcityiak, reminisced about the traditions of the precision industry in the city and at the same time added that former captains of the production industry can successfully cooperate with companies from other sectors. "The process of creating the city's brand is ongoing," emphasised Magdalena Tusińska, chief of the city strategy and investor relation department at Radom city council during the presentation entitled ‘Target Radom'.

The infrastructure projects in progress are designed to make Radom a city that is more attractive for investors. The list of priority tasks includes, among other things, the completion of the southern ring road in 2013 (at a cost of PLN 187 mln). This is the biggest investment of the city, but there are other road projects in the pipeline in the next few years with a total value of PLN 600 mln. "Radom has been changing, but this is a good thing because it has to face big challenges. We need to be able to keep young people here if we want to attract investors," stressed Anna Polak-Kocińska, deputy director of the economic information department at the Polish Information and Foreign Investment Agency (PAIiIZ), during the ‘Warehousing of the City Potential' discussion panel. Prof. Halina Brdulak, head of the department of international transport and logistics at the Warsaw School of Economics and the moderator of the discussion, cited the example of Wielkopolskie Centrum Logistyczne while speaking on how the city authorities can contribute to the promotion of their locality as one suitable for warehouse sector projects. "The help of the authorities is the basis in the case of such an enterprise. Virtually the whole ‘eastern wall' of the country could be serviced from this location," emphasised Prof. Halina Brdulak.

Issues connected with PPP projects were also brought up during the conference. Radom has already had its first experiences in this area. "The Masovian and Małopolska provinces are in the lead with regard to involvement in PPP projects, but Radom is also proving to be an able player in this area," summed up Agata Kozłowska, the director of the consulting company Investment Support. The participants of the following panel called ‘The Bargaining Chip' were Adam Żołnowski, representing PricewaterhouseCoopers, Brian Patterson, managing partner of AIG/Lincoln, Iwona Wałach of Iron Mountain Polska, Witold Lewandowski, head of Radwag, Prof. Sławomir I. Bukowski, dean of the faculty of economics at the Technical University of Radom, and Raphael Vieuxmaire, CEO of Exco A2A Poland. They assessed the city in terms of its potential for the setting up of processing and BPO centres. "We need to take a closer look at the structure of the unemployment in the city and see what is on offer, and which industry the available workforce can be of interest to," remarked Prof. Bukowski, encouragingly.

A discussion about the plans for opening a civil airport on the site of the Radom-Sadków military airfield also attracted the attention of those in attendance. Ambitious plans for an airport with a catchment area of 4 mln people should be able to service 371,000 passengers per year by 2015. By 2040 the number might have grown to over 2.8 mln. The project, which is to cost PLN 469 mln, has been divided into three stages, with the first planes to fly between Radom and London, Germany and Brussels. The initial investment expenditure will amount to PLN 180 mln. The director of Ernst & Young, Jarosław Błaszczak, who moderated the discussion entitled ‘Business in the Sky', summed up the discussion with the help of Czesław Jarosz, president of the management board of Spółka Port Lotniczy Radom, Tomasz Szymczak, national coordinator for airports for PL 2012 and Rafał Marczewski of the Polish Air Navigation Services Agency: "We need to keep our fingers crossed so that the plans for launching the civil airport can succeed. This is not just about the development of the airport, but also about the development of Radom."

MP