Now that the Olympic Games have started and years of construction work in Beijing have ended, Poland hopes Chinese construction companies will come to build the infrastructure it needs for Euro 2012. Poland, which will co-host the European soccer championship with Ukraine, lacks roads, stadiums, hotels, air and train networks, as well as other large-scale infrastructure needed for the event.
Suffering from labour shortages in the construction sector, Poland has only a few firms able to carry out work on such a scale. The amount of work made Poland an attractive market for Chinese construction companies, the head of PL.2012, a government agency created seven months ago to co-ordinate Euro 2012 preparations, told Reuters in an interview. "Huge investments in Beijing are now over and the US market is suffering from a slowdown," Marcin Herra said.
"The demand for the service of large construction companies is falling and Poland, with its political and budget stability, becomes a very attractive place for such firms." Herra said a few Chinese firms were already part of consortiums competing to build the stadium in the northern city of Gdansk.