Dear Audience, rarely had the small Polish town of Stalowa Wola enjoyed so much of the political limelight. It was Saturday night, and the assembled dignitaries were holding a musical celebration of China’s biggest investment in Poland, on February 1, 2012, when China’s LiuGong group acquired the construction machinery manufacturing operations of Polish company Huta Stalowa Wola (HSW).
HSW is not just any company. During the period of socialist rule, it was a flagship of Polish industry, the country’s leading manufacturer of heavy construction machinery, artillery equipment, and armored personnel carriers. But the factory never really adjusted to the market economy after the collapse of communism: it plunged deep into the red, received one government bailout after another, and ended up as a subsidiary of a giant Chinese corporation …
Ulrich Hinsen | ManagementRadio
