Nevertheless, in terms of the number of business entities, the MSME sector plays the dominant role in Katowice, which constitutes about 99% of the city’s business entities (56,754 – Statistic Poland 04/2025) and creates significant potential job opportunities. MSME are mainly represented in industries related to trade, education, construction, industrial processing, professional, scientific and technical activities.
Katowice and Metropolis GZM are one of the five most developed centers of modern business services in Poland.
- 7,4% of employment in the sector nationally
- 156 BPO, SSC/GBS, IT and R&D centers with 36,800 people employed (ABSL Report 2024 r.)
60.0% the percentage growth in total employment at services centers located in Katowice & GZM in 2018-2023. Increase by 11,700 people, with 92.4% finding employment in Katowice.
- in Katowice are located business services centers from 18 countries, among foreign companies, the largest share is represented by companies from the USA, France, Germany, United Kingdom and Netherlands which together account for almost 60% of all centers
- the major category of services provided in centers are within IT area, which also dominate the employment structure over 44% in Katowice and Metropolis
Business tourism – a rapidly growing branch of tourism that plays a significant role in the economic development of Katowice. It attracts regular meetings, major music and technology events, conferences and sports events.
Katowice is a City of Great Events: Intel Extreme Masters, European Economic Congress, FIVB Men’s Volleyball World Championship, European Congress of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises, OFF Festival, Katowice Comedy Carnival, Summer Theatre Garden, Tauron New Music, Silesian Jazz Festival, Rawa Blues, Tour de Pologne.
Infrastructure: the Culture Zone or NOSPR with one of the best concert halls in the world, the International Congress Centre (38,000 square meters of floor space, with the capacity of 15,000 people) and the Silesian Museum.
2024 in a nutshell:
- 7,802 – total conference days
- 5,995 – number of conferences and other events
- 2,103 – conferences lasting two days or more (35.1%)
- 1.30 days – average duration of a conference (1.28 days in 2023)
- 791,092 – event participants (730,001 in 2023)
- PLN 284,451,297.44 – total spending by business event participants (PLN 236,249,515.13 in 2023)
- PLN 642.32 – average spending by conference participants who stayed overnight (PLN 481.25 in 2023)
- PLN 242.21 – average spending by conference participants without an overnight stay (PLN 195.62 in 2023)