The role of special economic zones in shaping branch structure of industrial enterprises investment in Poland

Abstract

Special Economic Zones were one of the tools to accelerate the economic transition process in Poland. SEZs, being an attractive place to invest, significantly attracted investors to the economy, in particular foreign investors. Currently, the Special Economic Zones have been in existence for more than twenty years in Poland, so it is worth asking – do they still meets the expectations of diversification of economic activity and modernization of the Polish industry, or do they contribute to perpetuates of the unfavorable structure of investment? The answers to this question became the subject of considerations conducted in this paper. The working hypothesis was formulated as follows: special economic zones succeed not only to diversify economic activity in Poland, but to modernize it by actually influencing the branch structure of industrial enterprises’ investment. In the first part of the article, special economic zones are presented as a place to invest, then investment outlays to the Gross Domestic Product in Poland and other European Union countries were compared, indicating the appropriateness of using and maintaining instruments creating favorable conditions for investing in Poland. In the next part of the article, the author focused on the target object of the analysis, i.e. the assessment of the impact of the branch structure of investment in Zones on the structure of investment in Poland. This assessment was based on the comparative analysis of the structure of investment outlays in economic zones and outside the zones (in years 2010–2015), using structural similarities indicators and selected divergence indicators.