The Baltic economy Why Poland matters

It is a business opportunity

OPINION | It’s all about perspective. I moved back to northern Europe a year and half ago after almost 18 years in the Middle East. In many ways it felt like coming home; Poland to me is very similar to Finland: food, some parts of the culture and even the business. On the other hand, I hear from many Finns how Poland is quite different with a complex bureaucracy and challenging ways of doing business. Naturally, Poland is a different from Finland and Nordics, refreshingly proud about being a rising power in the heart of the Europe.


WHY DOES POLAND MATTER?
I am particularly interested in developing the commercial co-operation between our nations and, in this context, Poland is often overlooked. Some background: in the first half of 2025 (January to June) Poland was the sixth largest market for Finnish exporters, Finnish companies employ tens of thousands of people in Poland and trade between our two countries is well balanced. Recently there have been some examples of great co-operation on cutting-edge technologies such as satellites and quantum computing. Iceye, for example, is attracting investments from the Finnish and Polish governments via their investment vehicles, but also significant orders from both countries to enhance European sovereignty.

Finns have traditionally traded with their neighbours. This was—and still is—natural since our economies are closely interlinked, especially Sweden and Estonia. Many of us still remember that trade with the Soviet Union was significant, rising to 20-25% of our total exports. Those days are gone. Now our trade with Russia is close to nil, for good reasons. Achieving major growth in our neighbouring markets is, for a variety of reasons, quite challenging. The Baltic separates us from our next closest neighbours, requiring us to make more of an effort to reach them, but these markets are considerably larger than the Nordic and Baltic countries.

RELATED ARTICLE } Latvia is having a financial moment

Poland’s economic rise started in 1990s. The starting point was low, but the growth has been rapid, averaging 4.12% annually between 1992 and 2025 (projection for 2025), according to the IMF WEO 2025. In 2025 Poland is expected to climb to 20th place in the global GDP comparison and reach the ‘Trillion dollar club’, according to Donald Tusk, the prime minister.

Finnish exports to Poland grown steadily during the 2000s. Our market share has shrunk, but this is due to the market growing faster than we can increase our share. Growing it and increasing trade and prosperity, require deeper co-operation. Two areas in particular stand out.

ENERGY TRANSITION

Finland has, in my opinion, done quite well in transitioning to a deep green, yet reliable and affordable energy supply. One weakness is relatively high volatility; this creates challenges especially for those electricity users who cannot time their energy use. However, in general energy in Finland is affordable.



In Poland, the energy transition is still very much in the offing. Coal remains an important fuel for generating electricity. This, along with on-going nuclear-energy projects and ambitions, is creating a long lasting and sizeable business opportunity.

SI VIS PACEM, PARA BELLUM
It is highly unfortunate that our peace-loving nations need to spend a significant part of government budget on defence. In Poland, defence-related spending will be around 20% of the government budget in 2026 (around 5% of GDP). This naturally is a huge figure in modern Europe and quite a burden for the state finances. The procurement and execution related to this need to be well balanced and planned, which I trust they are.
The Finnish defence industry has a long track record of co-operation with Poland, most notably on the Rosomak programme for the past 20 years. 

We aim to continue and widen this mutually beneficial co-operation that creates jobs, prosperity and security in both countries. In addition, the Finnish model of comprehensive security is relevant for Poland and other countries in central and eastern Europe. One important part of this is the civil-security protections it gives. 



All in all, close co-operation in the Baltic Sea region—in terms of trade, logistics, security and even culture—is natural. This is increasingly important in a world that is less predictable than ever.

The author is the director for central & eastern Europe for Business Finland. He is Based in Warsaw.

Originally published as part of the Centrum Balticum survey of Poland.