Compared to countries in the same region, Poland seems promising. From the printed version of The Economist on June 9, Poland's latest GDP was 3.5%. This relatively high GDP only falls behind countries such as Russia, Turkey and Norway and it does not fall far behind. Nevertheless, the country also has a relatively high unemployment rate at 12.6%, just lower than two of the PIGS countries, Greece and Spain.
There may be a solution for the high unemployment rate.
According to the article "Renewable energy: Green electricity sector will grow faster when it gets head of wind" by The Financial Times on June 13, 10.4% of the country's electricity has been produced by renewable energy. But most of the renewable energy is produced by burning wood or straws at thermal power plants. The report said Poland is actually just utilizing 0.2% of its solar and wind potentials.
Poland is a windy country, especially in the northern parts. The country knows that the potentials are there. The report noted that wind turbine installations in the country grew 20-fold in the past six years, and the Polish renewable energy growth has so far generated 25,000 jobs.
The 25,000 jobs created do not seem too many for a country with a population of 38 million and an unemployment rate close to 13%. But if Poland can fully develop its renewable energy resources, it will create more jobs and ease its unemployment problem.
It has the potentials, but the Poland government needs to come up with a clear policy for building its renewable energy sector.
