A review of the aggregates market in eastern Europe, including Poland, Romania, Slovakia and the Czech Republic

Polish consolidation

Poland has a population of 38.5 million making it by far the largest of the recent new members to the European Union. GDP is $244.3billion and growing at just under 6%. It is a big country too with a land area of 312,685 km2. Historically it has had a reasonably high level of industrialisation though it also suffers high unemployment, has an underdeveloped and dilapidated infrastructure, and a poorer farming population.
According to the European Union of Aggregate Producers (UEPG) for 2005, there were just over 2000 companies in the country operating on 2,600 sites and employing around 60,000 people.
"It was originally just 15 enterprises owned by the state" said Krzysztof Maczka of the Polski Zwiazek Pracodawcow Prodducentow Kruszyw - the Polish producers' organisation. "Privatisation led to many small companies and new quarries being opened, "though this process is not yet finished."
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