Netflix’s recently opened office in Warsaw, Poland, will be adding an engineering hub, the company said on January 10, as part of a push to develop its central and Eastern Europe (CEE) operations. 

The company localised its service in Poland in 2016, as competition between streaming platforms boosted demand for locally created content. In 2022 alone, the streaming platform spent more than $91.7m on Polish films and series, according to Netflix’s figures. 

The Poland office will serve as a hub for the firm’s CEE strategy, chosen for its pool of local engineering talent, given its proximity to “excellent” universities and a strong developer community, Netflix said. 

Masdar bets on Kyrgyz solar 

Abu Dhabi’s state-owned energy company Masdar has agreed to develop a pipeline of renewable energy projects in the Kyrgyz Republic.

The firm said in a press release on January 10 that it will build a capacity of up to one gigawatt in the central Asian nation, starting with a 200-megawatt solar photovoltaic plant.

Kyrgyzstan typically suffers chronic power shortages, but has “good solar potential”, the energy minister Ibraev Taalaibek Omukeevich said in the press release. 

The country is currently heavily reliant on ageing and dysfunctional hydropower plants for power, according to the International Energy Agency, which has urged the country to move away from this reliance in a series of annual reports. The last renewable energy investment into the country was in 2015, according to fDi Markets data.

Masdar has settled firmly in central Asia, beginning work on projects in Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Armenia and Kazakhstan over the past two years.

TSMC confirms capex cuts

Taiwanese semiconductor powerhouse TSMC has confirmed cuts in its capital expenditure (capex) budget for 2023 as the company reverses the investment boost of the past two years. 

It set its capital budget for 2023 at between $32bn and $36bn, down from the $36.2bn it invested in full 2022, it said on January 12 as it released its quarterly results.

After boosting its investment budget during the chip crunch of the pandemic years, the firm first announced a 10% capex cut in October. This time last year, TSMC originally forecast a $40bn to $44bn capex budget for 2022. 

The company also confirmed a total investment of $40bn in its two landmark facilities in the US state of Arizona. 

EBRD tots up record investment year

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) delivered €13.1bn in investments last year, the bank said in a statement on January 12 — the highest investment figure it’s seen so far. 

The bank’s previous record, a response to the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, was €11bn.

As much as €1.7bn was deployed to support the real economy in Ukraine, particularly in “vital infrastructure, energy and food security, trade and support for the private sector”, the bank said. The EBRD also noted that 50% of its financing efforts have sat within green economy investments.