U.S. Global Investors, 22nd of July 2015

Joanna Sawicka still remembers having to wait in line for hours to buy food and school supplies. In communist-controlled Poland, such basic goods were rationed. Families received special government-issued cards that permitted them to buy only the minimal amount of meat per month. This experience made a lasting impression on Joanna as a child and inspired her to work toward a life in which she would not want for anything.

Now the research analyst for our Emerging Europe Fund (EUROX), Joanna recently visited her native Poland and found it to be a drastically different country from the one she grew up in. I sat down with her to chat about her travels and where she thought the Eastern European country might be headed from here.

So tell me about your trip.
Basically it was a family trip. I got to spend time with my parents and some old friends, not to mention check out how Poland looks now and see the changes that have happened since I last visited nine years ago.

I combined the trip with a short two-day visit to Warsaw, where I attended the Capital Markets Summit at the Warsaw Stock Exchange. The main topics of discussion during the conference included real estate and the growing role of debt capital markets. We also discussed the continued effort to privatize Polish businesses, a process that began in 1991 after the fall of communism.

Read the whole article here.