Ukrainian entrepreneurs working in Poland last year paid social contributions to the Polish Social Insurance Institution (ZUS) in the amount of 4 billion zlotys ($927 million at the current exchange rate), and this year these payments are expected to increase by 50% – up to 6 billion zlotys, said the commissioner of the Polish government for Polish-Ukrainian cooperation in the field of development, Jadwiga Emilewicz.

“Ukraine and Poland often talk at a heightened diplomatic temperature. But at the same time, exports from Poland to Ukraine grew by 55% last year, exports from Ukraine to Poland grew by 40%,” she said at the Second Ukraine Recovery Forum, organized recently in Warsaw by the Polish Investment and Trade Agency (PAIH).

She clarified that 30,000 Ukrainian entrepreneurs are registered in Poland.

According to her, such dynamics in the receipt of social contributions from them must be taken into account in the discussion about preferences and assistance for citizens of Ukraine.

The commissioner noted that the development of Ukrainian business in Poland was facilitated by the Polish Investment and Trade Agency, whose Kyiv representative office was temporarily moved to Warsaw at the beginning of the war, where a support center for Ukrainian business was created and a representative office of Diia.Business was opened.

The official noted that Ukrainian businesses registered in Poland - both private entrepreneurs and medium and large companies - are trying to work for the two countries.

“Many Ukrainian companies consider the Polish market as the first before entering the European market. We should do something similar and consider Ukrainian entrepreneurs in Poland as possible partners of Polish companies in Ukraine,” the commissioner said.

According to her, another opportunity for Polish business is the fact that many goods that were previously produced by foreign companies directly in Ukraine are now produced at facilities in Poland.