Warsaw, April 30, 2004 — A Deloitte survey released at the World Economic Forum's (WEF) regional summit in Warsaw shows that 81 percent of Western European companies believe that accession to the European Union will make the new member states more attractive for foreign investment. The survey results were presented by Otto Jelinek, chairman of Deloitte & Touche Central Europe.

Addressing attendees of the WEF's European Economic Summit 2004, Jelinek pointed out the positive spirit that prevailed in the survey, which included responses from the Top 200 Western European companies and the Top 1000 in Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

Some key findings from the survey include:

• When asked if EU membership will make the Central European states more attractive for investors from their own countries, some 81 percent of Western European companies felt positively, while only 17 percent believed EU accession would have no impact on the foreign direct investment (FDI) flow.
• In acceding countries, 77 percent of companies believe that EU accession makes their country more attractive to foreign investors — with Polish companies particularly optimistic — 89 percent of them think Poland will now be more attractive for FDI.
• On the other hand, nearly one third of the Western European companies surveyed believe that companies in their country have not, as yet, realised the potential markets and opportunities of the enlarged EU
• Only 62 percent of the Western European companies believe that EU Enlargement is beneficial to their country as a whole.

The survey further revealed that the majority of companies surveyed (73 percent) in the three Central European countries believe they are fully prepared for the changes, challenges and problems of EU accession. Approximately 89 percent of the Polish businesses are confident that accession will benefit their country, compared with 74 percent in the Czech Republic and 66 percent for Slovakia. In total, 66 percent of companies believe that accession will definitely be beneficial to their company — in terms of new markets, new trading partners and new regulations.

"We were amazed by the large number of companies confident about their readiness for the business conditions in the enlarged European Union — but we are happy to see so many clients who we have helped through our EU related services, joining this group," Jelinek says.

Deloitte plans to undertake a comparable survey in April 2005 to assess any changes in companies' attitudes after they have been confronted with the reality of an enlarged EU for 12 months. See the complete survey results in the PDF file attachment below.

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