 |
JULIE DENESHA
|
FIZZ BIZZ:
After luring Coca-Cola, other big companies followed |
|
 |
| Bucking the Trend |
 |
 |
|
|
|
One Polish community thinks prosperity is the real thing |
|
|
|
|
|
By JAN STOJASPAL | Niepolomice |
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
Posted Sunday, May 25, 2003; 17.12BST
A decade ago, Niepolomice was just another cash-strapped Polish municipality struggling to make the transition from communism to capitalism. The four state-owned enterprises based in the area were collapsing; the best and brightest young people were fleeing to the big cities; unemployment was climbing. Mayor Stanislaw Kracik was desperate. Realizing that "one can't build capitalism without capital," he decided to find some people who had it.
Though Niepolomice, which has a population of just 21,000 and lies some 20 km east of Krakow, was 25th on Coca-Cola's list of possible sites for a $30 million bottling plant, Kracik was determined to win it. At the time, it took years to get a new telephone line installed, yet Coca-Cola wanted at least five. So Kracik bought an old military switchboard and persuaded the telephone company to connect it to the public network. He paid to move a high-voltage line running through the prospective site, slashed through paperwork, and even enlisted a priest to preach the benefits of globalization to the skeptical local congregation.
The opening of the Coca-Cola plant in 1993 marked the beginning of Niepolomice's revival. Today, Coke has been joined by over a dozen major investors that have created hundreds of jobs. Why isn't the rest of Poland like this?
|
