Poland Infrastructure Report Q4 2008

Preparations for the Euro 2012 Football Championship continue to dominate Poland's infrastructure and construction sector. Work is soon to get underway on the stadiums for the event with those interested in the tender of the Baltic Arena in Gdansk currently submitting their bids. Foundation work on the National Stadium has already begun with the Polish engineering company PolAqua stating that it is fully capable of completing the work. The question of timeframe still hangs over Poland's preparation for Euro 2012.

In September 2008, Reuters reported that UEFA, the football governing body in charge of the Euro Championships , would rebuke the two hosts (Ukraine is cohost of the event) for the slow pace of preparations. There are worries that Poland and Ukraine will not be ready on time, although UEFA has announced that it will not be withdrawing the event from them yet. In a bid to speed up construction, Poland has approached China, and two consortia namely China Metallurgical Group Corporation and China Overseas Engineering Group have expressed an interest in the Baltic Arena construction project.

Work is underway to prepare Poland's infrastructure for the influx of visitors. In September, the Polish Minister of Infrastructure, Cezary Grabarczyk, announced that Euro 2012associated investments for the Poland's railway sector would stand at EUR9bn (US$12.7bn). BMI notes that a number of large rail infrastructure projects have been launched in the last quarter, including refurbishment of the railway line between Legnica and Wroclaw, as well as a US$630mn loan for the extension of railway line E65, which connects Poland's Baltic coast across to the country's border with Slovakia and the Czech Republic. New developments that could change the shape of Poland's railway sector have also been announced, with the Polish government approving an environmental impact study on a highspeed railway line, which will run from Warsaw through Lodz to Kalisz. Construction on the project is due to begin in 2014 and to be completed in 2019. Unfortunately, it has not all been good news for Poland's railway infrastructure; in August 2008, the public tender for the second metro line in Warsaw was cancelled after it was decided that the bids for the tender were not economically viable.

Poland continues to search for ways to diversify its power infrastructure away from its heavy reliance upon thermal power. The country is the biggest coal burner in Europe, but must diversify quickly if it wishes to meet the EU's green strategy to reduce carbon emissions by 20%. Poland's green credentials have been boosted in the last quarter with a number of wind parks being announced. Martifer Renewables began constructing two wind parks with a total installed capacity of 28 megawatts (MW) in August 2008. Danish windpower producer EuroTrust and Danish windpower firm Agrowind have signed up for a 400MW windfarm project in Poland, and in July 2008 Zbigniew Prokopowicz, the chief executive of Polish Energy Partners, announced in an interview with Reuters that the company planned to install 700MW of wind capacity by 2012.