I focus on dialogue and cooperation

Bogdan Wenta, the Mayor of the City of Kielce talks new projects, investment allowances, cooperation for the development of modern business service sector in Kielce, as well as about continuing initiatives and the role of vocational training.

Outsourcing&More: From the beginning of your presidency, you repeat that you will strive to make Kielce more attractive to business. What steps are you taking to make this happen?

Bogdan Wenta, the Mayor of the City of Kielce: We focus on dialogue and cooperation, including Kielce universities. Support given by the Jan Kochanowski University in Kielce and the Kielce University of Technology is of great importance because through properly selected fields of studies we can educate specialists who are sought-after on the labor market. The needs can be seen especially in the IT industry.

True, the demand for IT and programming services is constantly growing and is reflected in how the service market in cities is changing. IT and programming companies constitute a significant segment in this market and generate high-quality jobs. We recognize it and try to follow this direction. Big potential lies within the Kielce students. Suffice it to say that they can conquer even... the Space! That’s exactly the way it is and there is no exaggeration. This year, Kielce will host the next edition of the European Rover Challenge, which is the only European Rover Competition in Europe. As a Mayor of Kielce I am extremely proud and have great satisfaction that for four days in September Kielce will be the world capital of robotics. Why Kielce?

At this point, the great potential of the Kielce scientific community should be emphasized, especially the one focused on the Kielce University of Technology. I am very proud of both – the scientific staff and the Impuls team, as they are world leaders. Impuls is a unique rep resentation of our city, which last year led the way in European and world competitions of rovers. I am pleased that in Kielce we have scientists who ambitiously reach for more, want to be higher and further, implement science challenges and have astronomical achievements in this field. At the same time, I am very pleased that the construction of mobile robots – including “Martian robots” – has become a specialty of the Kielce University of Technology, and the designers gathered around this university in such a diffi cult and demanding field as robotics are recognized and appreciated internationally. Such successes are also a motiva tion to support the development of new technologies, because the solutions used in the design of the rover are not only related to the mission of conquering the Red Planet, but may have more mundane applications in autonomous vehicles used by the army or police.

Does the city support students at the education stage?

Of course. First of all, recently we have implemented the International Scholarship Program of the City of Kielce for high school graduates. We want to encourage the most talented high school graduates to choose Kielce universities, through monthly scholarships in the amount of several hundred zlotys. This of course is a form of additional gratification for them. Kielce has a great scientific base, which thanks to EU funds is becoming more and more advanced every year. The development of our universities in recent years is impressive, but the trend of decreasing number of students is noticeable throughout Poland. Our program is to be one of the elements of improving the situation.

Visit to the newly built Kielce Vocational Training Center.

However, this is not the only form of youth support at the education stage. To this end, a completely new institution is created in Kielce – the Vocational Training Center.

Construction works are to be finished soon, we plan that the Center will inaugurate its activities in September this year. Center will be a modern and key center for building professional competences and qualifications for youth and adults. Its activity will be based on close cooperation with enterprises from the IT industry and the metal and foundry industry, which are smart specializations of the Świętokrzyskie Province. What will the activity of this unit consist in?

We are motivated by four goals: training vocational and basic skills, practical training of a profession in modern and well-equipped studios and workshops, training in occupations expected by the labor market and providing employment as well as raising qualifications or support in changing them, in line with the idea of lifelong learning. We are in constant contact with representatives of the business world who, like us, eagerly await the completion of construction works and the start of teaching classes. We all see the huge potential of this institution, which can bring us only benefits. At the very beginning we mentioned the IT industry. As city authorities, you pointed out that in Kielce a certain problem for business development, including IT, is the insufficient amount of office space for rent.

We’ve noticed this problem. A prerequisite for attracting new investors from service sector to Kielce and de veloping companies already present in the city is the offer of advanced of fice buildings, which should be available for tenants. They must be offices for rent, because companies prefer renting. The office space sought is a minimum of 500–600 sq.m. However, the city has taken action to change it.

To encourage entrepreneurs from Kielce to invest in office spaces, we organize thematic meetings with developers where we talk about this problem. We organized a study visit for developers to Warsaw, where they could get acquainted with the office buildings built by our company Echo Investment and get answers to many questions. We can already see the first effects of our activities.

Outsourcing&More | March–April 2020 The great potential of the Kielce scientific community should be emphasized, especially the one focused on the Kielce University of Technology. I am very proud of both – the scientific staff and the Impuls team, as they are world leaders.

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New inwestor in the city – IT company – Britenet.

What exactly?

For example, in recent months the Investor Assistance Center has been involved in the search for office space for Britenet. We received a request to identify attractive office spaces that meet a number of criteria. Of the several locations we proposed, only one met the investor’s requirements. The investor was offered a large, 600-meter office space with the possibility of free arrangement in the open space standard. Thanks to the open approach to investor requirements, one of the local developers decided to accept the challenge and adapted the newly built space accordingly. Instead of dividing the space into smaller parts, he left it entirely for the tenant. As a result, the company has already moved to a new office and new employees are gradually being employed. I am glad that the companies that have established cooperation with us value it very much after many years. Like in the case of Transition Technologies, which recently celebrated the 5 th anniversary of the company’s branch in Kielce.

Kielce encourage to invest in office space through special allowances. This is completely new.

We thought this was the right step. Substantive departments of the city prepared an act exempting new office investments from real estate tax within 3 years after the completion of the investment. It is worth paying attention to this act of local law, because it is an important progress in creating the economic development of our city. In this way, we encourage developers and construction companies to reach for this law and take advantage of property tax exemptions. It is a really good tool that we worked on for several months and I would like it to be also an effective tool, bringing concrete benefits to the city and developers. What are the program details?

The City Council resolution on the exemption from property tax constituting regional investment aid for an initial investment in the field of newly built buildings allows developers and construction investors to obtain an exemption from property tax for a period of 3 years. The office building should have at least 4,000 sq. m. of usable area, of which 80% is a high standard office space. Other conditions are described in detail in the resolution, they include air conditioning, raised floors, room height at least 2.7 m, separate structured cabling for telephone lines, electric lines and computer systems. I believe that our proposal will meet with great interest and strengthen the business potential of the city of Kielce.

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