The neat two-story rows of white containers stretch right up to the towering cranes of the vast construction site. Clothes can be seen hanging in some of the windows.
The compound will eventually be home to as many as 5,200 workers, most of them coming from Asia. The Indians, Pakistanis, Filipinos and Turkmen are being employed by Orlen, Poland’s largest company and the government’s economic champion, to build a new $6.3 billion plastics facility at its sprawling refining complex.
About 600 kilometers south in Hungary, Chinese builders are milling around on a break, checking their mobile phones. They are helping construct one of three plants near the city of Debrecen, part of Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s vision for electric vehicle battery manufacturing to underpin the future Hungarian economy.