Here, China’s informed policy of supporting poor Asian and African countries is definitely worth mentioning. Perhaps some of you think that China and India are far countries, and for that reason pose no challenge for us. This is far from being true, as technological progress and lower transportation costs have in many instances rendered distance immaterial, with many economists speaking of ‘the death of  5  R Freeman, The Great Doubling: labor in the new global economy, Georgia State University, Usery lecture in labor policy, 2005. 6  Examples can be found in a book written by T Friedman and entitled The World is Flat. A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Nowy Jork, 2005. The analysis of services that may be subjected to the global competition can be found inter alia in a paper by B Jensen, L Kletzer Tradable Services: Understanding the Scope and Impact of Services Offshoring:, Institute for International Economics working paper 05-9, September 2005. 7  See the European Commission’s paper Globalisation: Trends, Issues and Macro Implications for the EU, EUROPEAN COMMISSION, DIRECTORATE-GENERAL FOR ECONOMIC AND FINANCIAL AFFAIRS ECONOMIC PAPERS, No 254, July 2006. 8  P Romer, Increasing Returns and Long-Run Growth, Journal of Political Economy, October 1986; P Romer, Endogenous Technological Change, Journal of Political Economy, October 1990. 2  BIS Review 97/2006  distance’.
As citizens, we have every right to demand that decisionmakers, regardless how they differ in their assessment of the past, create and support a common vision of strong and competitive Poland in the global economy of the 21st century as fast as possible. Thank you very much for your kind attention. 4  BIS Review 97/2006