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
- 140 BPO, SSC/GBS, IT and R&D centers with 33,400 people employed (ABSL Report 2023 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.
2023 in a nutshell:
- 6,451 conference meetings and other business events, of which nearly 24% (or 1,529) lasted two days or longer.
- 8,261 the total number of conference days in Katowice.
- 4,681 – number of one-day meetings, which is 72.6% of the total number of conferences (in 2022 – 4,897).
- 1.28 days – average conference duration (in 2022 – 1.24 days).
- 730,001 – number of participants (in 2022 – 552,849 people).
- PLN 236,249,515.13 – total expenditure of business event participants (in 2022 – PLN 151 million).
- PLN 950.17 – average total expenditure of conference participants using accommodation (in 2022 – PLN 837.73).
- PLN 195.62 – average total expenditure of conference participants who did not use accommodation (in 2022 – PLN 172.33).