Poland is one of the countries benefiting most from changes in global supply chains resulting from the US-China rivalry, according to a Bloomberg analysis. Mexico, Vietnam, Indonesia, and Morocco were listed among other countries.

According to Bloomberg, the five countries outlined in the report are crucial as ‘connectors’, economies that geographically and economically pin down an increasingly fragmented world while attracting much of the investment and international trade.

In the section on Poland, the authors highlight the country’s role as the second largest production centre of batteries for electric cars after China. They also recall plans to produce Poland’s electric car brand, Izera, based on a partnership with Chinese conglomerate Geely, which is said to demonstrate “greater ambitions than being a production hub for Western European car manufacturers”.

The report by the world’s largest news agency, which specialises in providing information on financial markets, notes that the growing battery industry (their factories have been opened by corporations such as LG Chem and Northvolt AB, investments are planned by Volkswagen and Belgium’s Unicorn, and electric car plants are planned by Mercedes) has been accompanied by an increase in imports of components and raw materials (including graphite) from China.

Dependence on Chinese inputs is widely seen as a potential weakness for the nascent European electric vehicle industry, which is also under attack from a wave of imports of generally cheaper Chinese electric cars. But in places like Poland, long-term geostrategic concerns matter less than the immediate economic stimulus that new plants entail.

Arkadiusz Słomczyński