Enterprise and innovativeness as driving forces behind changes in the city

On 15 June 2018 Mrs Izabella Żyglicka, Vice-chairman of the Regional Chamber of Commerce in Katowice, participated, as a panelist, in the session entitled “Enterprise and innovativeness as driving forces behind changes in the city”, which was held as part of the City 2018 – City Management Conference on the latest trends in city management and future city development directions.

During the discussion, Mrs Izabella Żyglicka pointed out three priorities:

1. It is essential that the city has a vision and that city authorities can precisely define the future and development of the city. Then, entrepreneurs will know which city is friendly to their business.
2. The president, mayor, city or county leader defines a certain direction of operation. It is important that a city representative in charge of contacts with entrepreneurs, if appointed, is equipped with relevant tools and prerogatives. This must be a matter-of-fact decision maker, because only then an entrepreneur that intends to invest in a given location will feel that they have a local-government partner. It is also important that offers of cities are comparable because it would be good to develop common standards of conduct, which will make business decision-making easier.
3. A demand that a session of the city (municipality or county) council focused only on enterprise and entrepreneurs should be held at least twice a year in each city, as this would make communication between entrepreneurs and the local government easier.

The debate moderated by Dr Marcin Baron, University of Economics in Katowice, was also attended by: Grzegorz Wolff, Deputy Head of the Economic Development Bureau of Warsaw, Małgorzata Mańka Szulik, President of Zabrze, Bożena Rojewska, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Fundusz Górnośląski S.A. in Katowice.