How to build a Polish Silicon Valley? Create an innovation-friendly environment. Grupa Azoty, Poland’s largest fertilizer and chemical group and one of Europe’s key players in that market, has signed a cooperation agreement with the accelerator of the Poland Prize by AdVentures programme. Already in September, the accelerator team will start looking for business opportunities in Southern, Central and Eastern Europe.

In the first half of 2018, the Grupa Azoty Group recorded EBITDA of PLN 529m, with revenue of PLN 4.88bn. Noteworthy, EBITDA decreased by PLN 185m (or 26%) year on year, while sales revenue grew, by nearly PLN 8m relative to the first half of 2017. This clearly shows that the results for the first half of 2018 were strongly affected by fluctuations on the cost side.

Grupa Azoty S.A. was once again included in the FTSE4Good indices, as announced by FTSE Russell following the June 2018 review.

On July 26th 2018, Grupa Azoty entered into a new loan agreement for up to PLN 500m with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. The funding secured under the agreement meets Grupa Azoty’s remaining corporate financing needs and will enable implementation of strategic projects until 2026.

On Monday, July 23rd, Grupa Azoty’s subsidiary ATT Polymers opened the new Logistics Centre in Guben. This is yet another project that will significantly contribute to the expansion of Grupa Azoty’s plastics business. The opening ceremony was attended by representatives of Grupa Azoty, the authorities of Brandenburg, the Spree-Neisse region and the city of Guben as well as trading partners of Grupa Azoty’s German-based subsidiary.

Grupa Azoty was Poland’s only company to accompany the Polish government delegation to the UN High Level Political Forum (HLPF) in New York. During the ministerial session, Jadwiga Emilewicz, Minister of Entrepreneurship and Technology, presented a report on the implementation in Poland of the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Grupa Azoty, which discussed examples of its own best practices contributing to the implementation of the Agenda, played a major role in the presentation of the report. The described initiatives included the Product Stewardship programme, Idea4Azoty (a proprietary acceleration programme), as well as cooperation with SatAgro (a startup).