Beijing Review: China and Poland pledged to establish a “friendly, cooperative partnership” three years ago when Chinese President Hu Jintao visited Poland. What progress has been made in the political, economic and cultural spheres over the years?

Krzysztof Szumski: Relations between Poland and China have a long history. Poland was one of the first countries in the world to recognize the People’s Republic of China in the international arena. Officially, diplomatic relations were established on October 7, 1949, just seven days after the proclamation of “New China.” Since that time to the present day we have managed to have friendly relations and contacts in many fields, including political, economic, cultural, science and education cooperation.

Since the official visit of President Hu Jintao to Poland, great progress has been achieved in deepening our bilateral political contacts and successfully organizing mutual high-level visits. One of the most significant events this year was the official visit to Poland by the Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress of China Wu Bangguo in May, which strengthened the cooperation between the parliaments of both countries. Actually, we are working with our Chinese friends to work out the best opportunity to prepare the highest-level official visit from Poland to China in 2008.

Our long-term traditional cooperation can serve as a great principle for Poland and China to work together in the international arena to build a better, prosperous and harmonious world. As a full member of the European Union (EU), Poland is eager to play an important role to develop the relations between the EU and China, as well as to cooperate on regional and global issues.

Since 2004, economic cooperation between Poland and China has been developing rapidly. Bilateral trade turnover for the first five months of this year reached approximately $2.8 billion with $506 million in exports to China and $2.3 billion in imports from China.

Cultural cooperation is becoming the most important part of the mutual promotion of our two countries. Annually there are plenty of cultural events, exhibitions and concerts taking place in Poland and China. Besides the famous Polish heroes in all Chinese regions-pianist Fryderyk Chopin and chemist Maria Sklodowska-Curie-we are doing our best to promote in China other outstanding Polish people and the cultural heritage of our country.

The Polish Agency for Enterprise Development and the Polish Information and Foreign Investment Agency (PAIiIZ) have started preparing for Poland’s participation in World Expo 2010 in Shanghai. What kind of exhibit or presentations have they decided on?

Deputy President of PAIiIZ Anna Kaminska, who has been appointed by the Polish Government as the commissioner of the Polish section of World Expo 2010, recently led a delegation of Polish experts to Shanghai. It had been decided that Poland would sign the contract with the coordination office of Shanghai World Expo 2010 at the end of this year or beginning of 2008. We would like to reconfirm that Poland will build its own pavilion on an attractive, well-located plot of 3,000 square meters. The Polish presentation will cover all the main fields of our cultural, scientific, economic and social life.

According to PAIiIZ’s latest report on foreign direct investment (FDI) issued in February, the organization said that its priority for 2007 is to concentrate on driving up investments not only from the G7 countries, but also from the rapidly developing BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China). What is PAIiIZ specifically doing to increase foreign investment from China this year?

PAIiIZ pays more and more attention to attracting investors from BRIC countries with great focus on China. It makes utmost efforts to meet growing interest from Chinese business circles in our economy. It invites various Chinese companies to visit Poland and to investigate local business environment, and many of them are going to visit Poland this year. Moreover, PAIiIZ