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Last year, twice as many foreign companies registered in Poland than five years ago, including investors from Silicon Valley earlier linked with Uber or Twitter, experts have informed PAP.

The Economic Information Centre (COIG) has announced that between January 1, 2019, and the end of December 2019, among new companies registered in the KRS national company register, 8,820 firms emerged with foreign capital, representing growth of almost 12 percent against the erstwhile record year of 2018.

When it comes to geographic spread, the highest number of firms (40.9 percent) are registered in the central Mazowieckie province, southern Lower Silesia (9.65 percent) and southern Malopolskie province (8.28 percent). Most new companies, as usual, appear in Warsaw (3,061) with further positions occupied by Wroclaw (676) and Krakow (621).

The results are twice as good as in 2014, when 4,400 foreign companies registered in Poland.

Data from the National Bank of Poland (NBP) show that the value of Polish obligations from foreign direct investments at the end of 2018 stood at PLN 859.1 billion (EUR 199.8 billion) and was 2.7 percent higher than at the end of the previous year.

In terms of geographical make-up, most investors in Poland were German, with PLN 172.7 billion (EUR 40.1 billion) followed by France on PLN 89.4 billion (EUR 20.7 billion), who beat 2017's second placed USA, third on PLN 88.6 billion (EUR 20.6 billion).

Dr Jakub Sawulski of the Polish Economic Institute said Poland is a very attractive location for foreign direct investment. Increasingly, investments are not only in the traditional industrial factories engaged in assembly, but also in highly-qualified jobs. The modern business services sector is developing very quickly in Poland, with various types of accounting, IT and HR centres emerging providing services for companies worldwide.

"The number of people employed in that type of enterprise in Poland has grown at a two-digit rate for several years," Sawulski said.