ESB International Investments has announced it has selected Poland as one of its three strategic markets in Europe and is to bid for distribution companies there. It has also opened an office in Warsaw. It is to bid for companies in the G8 group, a group of energy distributors from northern and central Poland which are in the process of being privatised.

Spain and the UK are the other two European markets on which the company is focusing.

"The decision to invest followed a detailed review of the Polish market over an 18-month period," ESB International Investments said in a statement. "A comparison of technical capacities, infrastructure and customer base culminated in a decision by the company to enter the Polish market."

Mr Billy McCann, chairman of ESB, said the strategy for Poland was "based on forming a partnership and together seeking out new investment opportunities to further grow in central and eastern Europe in a newly enlarged EU".

Mr Donal Curtin, managing director of ESB International Investments, believed the ESB's experience of the EU "together with the role we have played in the development of the Irish economy gives us a sound platform from which to replicate our success in Poland".