“IN ANOTHER 20 YEARS shipbuilding in Poland may not exist any more,” says Krzysztof Kulczycki, one of the owners of Crist, a shipyard and builder of offshore steel structures in Gdynia, a city in the north of Poland on the Baltic Sea. Faced with competition from the Far East, many shipyards, once the pride of Gdynia and neighbouring Gdansk, are struggling. Crist is profitable, but mainly thanks to a subsidiary, Crist Offshore, which makes offshore wind turbines and oil platforms.Over in Gdansk the mood is even gloomier. The former Lenin shipyard, which became the symbol of Poland’s struggle against communism and the cradle of Solidarity, the Soviet bloc’s first independent trade union, has been in decline for more than two decades. The main reason for its survival is its iconic status: no government was prepared to let it go bust on its watch. History is everywhere.Once the employer of 17,000 workers, the Gdansk shipyard is now down to around 1,000. Most of its buildings are empty and derelict, standing in an area of industrial wasteland right next to Gdansk’s meticulously reconstructed historic city centre. In 2007 three-quarters of the Gdansk...
from The Economist: Special report http://ift.tt/1lhaT7K
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