One of the goals is to ensure that the cooperation between Norwegian and Polish companies happen directly, and not through the companies from other Nordic countries who used the Polish subcontractors.
– Fortunately the times where a polish worker in Norway was seen as nothing more than a worker with a mustache is over, says 31-year old economist Antonin Falkowski, Poland's business matchmaker in Oslo.
– Norwegians perception of Poland and Polacks has changed. An the Norwegian industry is in the process of discovering the strong Polish economy and the companies that push it forward, Falkowski says.
– The main challenge is to accelerate the effective exchange of information between companies so that they can get a head start, he says, and admits that it's still faster to establish cooperation with Danish companies.
– This is perhaps because they historically have been more outward-looking than the Norwegian, he suggests.
The 25 Polish companies that is represented is Oslo covers everything from smaller suppliers of windows (Stolbud), an online store that sells Polish building materials to Norwegians (Happyhouse.no), to the steel giant Polimex, which already has several major projects both in Oslo and in other regions.