Le commerce extérieur polonais

Polish Foreign Trade: the Interrelationship of Domestic and Foreign Economic Policy. During the course of the past thirty years Poland has been transformed from a rural agricultural society to an urban industrialized and socialized society. However, the transformation has not occurred without serious economic problems. One of the more important implications of the recent drive toward economic modernization in Poland is the increased dependence of the Polish economy on the vagaries of the world market and the reduced ability of Polish leaders to control the domestic economy. The most visible implication of the Polish strategy of economic modernization has been the significant opening up of the economy to contacts with the industrial West. This has meant that trade with the other members of the CMEA has decreased as a percentage of overall Polish trade and brings into question the compatibility of Poland's trade policy with the West and the CMEA integration programs to which Poland is a party. In addition, expanded trade with the West at a time of rising prices on world markets has added to domestic Polish inflationary pressures. Given the government's commitment to stabilizing prices, this has necessitated a substantial increase in subsidies to cushion the effects of inflation. By 1975 subsidies accounted for almost 17.5 percent of total budgetary revenue. Another problem which Poland's modernization strategy has faced is the rapid growth of Poland's hard currency debt which rose from less than $1 billion in 1970 to between $12.8 and $14 billion at the end of 1977. Even though the growth of Polish imports from the West has been stemmed, the gap between imports and exports remains large and the debt continues to grow. Although the growth of Polish trade with the West reduced the relative position of the CMEA countries in Polish trade, economic ties with the Soviet Union and the other CMEA countries continue to retain primary importance for the Polish economy. Overall foreign trade — with both the West and the CMEA countries — has become a much more important element of the Polish economy during the 1970s. While trade expansion has provided a stimulus to the dynamism of the Polish economy, it has also added a degree of dependence and uncertainty that was not present in the past. Polish policy makers are faced with a set of serious problems, both domestic and foreign, that they must solve if the Polish economy is to be stabilized

Business · Currency · Debt · Economic growth · Economic policy · Economics · Economy · Market economy · Modernization theory · Revenue · Subsidy · Post-Communist Economic and Political Transition