The President of the Newry Chamber of Commerce and Trade in conjunction with the Honorary Consul of the Republic of Poland in Northern Ireland, led a business delegation including the Chair of Newry, Mourne and Down Council to the city of Szczecin in Poland. The visit marks the first international visit to the country and companies benefited from a range of pre-arranged meetings with prospective suppliers and buyers of their products. Participating companies included; DQF Sofas, MJM Marine, Brilliant Red, First Derivatives and Regen Waste.
During the visit, the Marshal of the West Pomeranian Region hosted a lunch to welcome the delegation to the area and to provide a briefing on the opportunities for business in the region.
A meeting was also held with the Vice Dean of the Medical University of West Pomerania to discuss potential cooperation and opportunities for student placements in the field of emergency medicine. As part of the Chamber’s international recruitment effort for Emergency Department consultants, a commitment was made by the University to circulate the job description and prospectus to University Alumni.
Following a visit to a number of investment projects in the region, the delegation met with the Deputy Mayor of the Szczecin Council and learned of future infrastructure spend of approx. £1 billion in in the area.
Michael McKeown, President of Newry Chamber commented ‘We are excited at the level of new business that this trip may generate for our participating Chamber members. We are also pleased to announce that we signed our first international cooperation agreement with the Northern Chamber of Poland which is the largest Chamber in Poland with over 1700 members’.
Also speaking about the visit, Jerome Mullen, Honorary Consul of the Republic of Poland in Northern Ireland said ‘Given our strong Polish community in Northern Ireland, this was a unique opportunity for the Chamber to lead a delegation to see at first hand the opportunities that exist in both selling to and sourcing from this region. We are delighted with the many valuable linkages that we made with this region which is situated just 20km from the German border and we hope to build on that in the future through the strong linkages created’.
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