A new trend is emerging among Polish companies no longer willing to put up with the rising cost of hiring skilled labour and dealing with the country's complex bureaucracy. They have begun recruiting and opening bases in Germany, a country better known for its well-paid skilled workers.

In Pasewalk, just across the German border from the Polish city of Szczecin, Jaroslaw Wieczorek sits in his office in a converted slaughterhouse, Pasewalk's main employer in communist times. He has just opened a factory there to make parts for his automotive machine tool business and his customers include Volkswagen and Bridgestone factories in Poland and around Europe.