According to estimates, there are between 14 and 17 million Poles living outside Poland, mainly in the United States (6-10 m), Germany (about 1.5 m), Brazil (about 1 m), France (about 1 m), Canada (about 600 thou), Belarus (from 400 thou to 1 m), Ukraine (300-500 thou), Australia (130-180 thou), Argentina (100-170 thou) and Russia (about 100 thou). For comparison: 17 million is about 40 percent of the population living currently in Poland. We call the Poles living outside Poland “the Polonia”.

Despite the large size of the Polonia, the number of millionaires in the community barely exceeds several dozen. The best known ones live in the USA: if only to mention Barbara Piasecka-Johnson, Steve Wozniak, Izabela Roman, Ryszard Pratt or Stefan Kudelski, who is in Switzerland.

For many years Polish governments have had no idea about how to attract the Polonia’s money to Poland. The Polonia Foundation, a non-governmental organisation, which this year hosted for the twelfth time the World Polonia Economic Conference, has also had poor results in this area.

This time about 80 Polish business people arrived in Warsaw from Europe, America, Israel, Ukraine, Belarus and Latvia, representing small and mostly one person businesses.

This year’s conference (16-18 September) showed that it was a social-business gathering whose commercial outcomes it is still too early to assess. It was certainly necessary from the point of view of bringing closer together the Polish business communities scattered outside Poland.