Your Warehouse in Poland

With the collapse of the ruble-based COMECON trading bloc in 1990, Poland scrambled to reorient its trade. As early as 1996, 70% of its trade was with EU members, and neighboring Germany today is Poland’s dominant trading partner. Poland joined the EU in May 2004. Before that, it fostered regional integration and trade through the Central European Free Trade Agreement (CEFTA), which included Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Slovenia.

Most of Poland’s imports are capital goods needed for industrial retooling and for manufacturing inputs, rather than imports for consumption. Therefore, a deficit is expected and should even be regarded as positive at this point. Poland is a member of the World Trade Organization and the European Union. It applies the EU’s common external tariff to goods from other countries (including the U.S.). Most Polish exports to the U.S. receive tariff benefits under the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) program.

Opportunities for trade and investment continue to exist across virtually all sectors. The American Chamber of Commerce in Poland, founded in 1991 with seven members, now has more than 300 members. Strong economic growth potential, a large domestic market, EU membership, and a high level of political stability are the top reasons U.S. and other foreign companies do business in Poland.

Investment (gross fixed): 18.4% of GDP (2004 est.)

Household income or consumption by percentage share:

* lowest 10%: 3.2%
* highest 10%: 24.7% (1998)

Distribution of family income - Gini index: 31.6 (1998)

Agriculture - products: potatoes, fruits, vegetables, wheat; poultry, eggs, pork

Industrial production growth rate: 10% (2004 est.)

Electricity:

* production: 150.8 TWh (2004)
* consumption: 121.3 TWh (2004)
* exports: 15.2 TWh (2004)
* imports: 5 TWh (2004)

Electricity - production by source:

* fossil fuel: 98.1%
* hydro: 1.5%
* other: 0.4% (2001)
* nuclear: 0%

Oil:

* production: 17,180 barrel/day (2001 est.)
* consumption: 424,100 barrel/day (2001 est.)
* exports: 53,000 barrel/day (2001)
* imports: 413,700 barrel/day (2001)
* proved reserves: 116.4 million barrel (1 January 2002)

Natural gas:

* production: 5.471 billion m3 (2001 est.)
* consumption: 13.85 billion m3 (2001 est.)
* exports: 41 million m3 (2001 est.)
* imports: 8.782 billion m3 (2001 est.)
* proved reserves: 154.4 billion m3 (1 January 2002)

Current account balance: $-3.831 billion (2004 est.)

Exports - commodities: machinery and transport equipment 37.8%, intermediate manufactured goods 23.7%, miscellaneous manufactured goods 17.1%, food and live animals 7.6% (2003)

Imports - commodities: machinery and transport equipment 38%, intermediate manufactured goods 21%, chemicals 14.8%, minerals, fuels, lubricants, and related materials 9.1% (2003)

Reserves of foreign exchange & gold: $41.88 billion (2004 est.)

Debt - external: $99.15 billion (2004 est.)

Currency exchange rates: Złoty per US dollar - 3.15 (June 2006) 3.7 (2004), 3.8891 (2003), 4.08 (2002), 4.0939 (2001), 4.3461 (2000). Złoty per euro 3.96 (Aug 2006)

Before World War II, Poland’s industrial base was concentrated in the coal, textile, chemical, machinery, iron, and steel sectors. Today it extends to fertilizers, petrochemicals, machine tools, electrical machinery, electronics, cars and shipbuilding.

Poland’s industrial base suffered greatly during World War II, and many resources were directed toward reconstruction. The communist economic system imposed in the late 1940s created large and unwieldy economic structures operated under a tight central command. In part because of this systemic rigidity, the economy performed poorly even in comparison with other economies in central Europe.

In 1990, the Mazowiecki government began a comprehensive reform program to replace the centralized command economy with a market-oriented system. While the results overall have been impressive, many large state-owned industrial enterprises, particularly the railroad and the mining, steel, and defense sectors, have remained resistant to the change and downsizing required to survive in a market-based economy.

Agriculture employs 27.5% of the work force but contributes only 3.8% to the gross domestic product (GDP), reflecting relatively low productivity. Unlike the industrial sector, Poland’s agricultural sector remained largely in private hands during the decades of communist rule. Most of the former state farms are now leased to farmer tenants. Lack of credit is hampering efforts to sell former state farmland. Currently, Poland’s 2 million private farms occupy 90% of all farmland and account for roughly the same percentage of total agricultural production. These farms are small—8 hectares on average—and often fragmented. Farms with an area exceeding 15 ha accounted for only 9% of the total number of farms but cover 45% of total agricultural area. Over half of all farming households in Poland produce only for their own needs with little, if any, commercial sales.

Poland is a net exporter of confectionery, processed fruit and vegetables, meat, and dairy products. Processors often rely on imports to supplement domestic supplies of wheat, feed grains, vegetable oil, and protein meals, which are generally insufficient to meet domestic demand. However, Poland is the leading producer in Europe of potatoes and rye and is one of the world’s largest producers of sugar beets. Poland also is a significant producer of rapeseed, grains, hogs, and cattle. Attempts to increase domestic feed grain production are hampered by the short growing season, poor soil, and the small size of farms.

Poland has steadfastly pursued a policy of economic liberalization throughout the 1990s with mixed results. The privatization of small and medium state-owned companies and a liberal law on establishing new firms has encouraged the development of the private business sector, which has been the main drive for Poland’s economic growth. The agricultural sector remains handicapped however by structural problems, surplus labor, inefficient small farms, and a lack of investment. Restructuring and privatization of “sensitive sectors” (e.g., coal), has also been slow, but recent foreign investments in energy and steel have begun to turn the tide. Recent reforms in health care, education, the pension system, and state administration have resulted in larger than expected fiscal pressures. Improving this account deficit and tightening monetary policy, with focus on inflation, are priorities for the Polish government. Further progress in public finance depends mainly on privatization of Poland’s remaining state sectors, the reduction of state employment, and an overhaul of the tax code to incorporate farmers, who currently pay significantly lower taxes than other people with similar income levels.

* Rail: Poland’s railways constitute one of the larger railway systems in the European Union, with 23,420 km (14,552 miles) of network as of 1998). Access to track has been opened up to competition as required by the EU. However, delays by successive governments in reforming the state railway company, PKP, combined with the imposition of severe budgetary constraints, have caused a major crisis. Refurbishment of the network, bringing key routes into line with the standards on western European railway networks, is proceeding very slowly, and serious arrears of maintenance have resulted in the imposition of speed restrictions on many other lines. Line closures and withdrawal of feeder services similar to those that took place in the UK under the ‘Beeching Axe’ have accelerated since 2000.
* Road: by Western European standards, Poland has a relatively poor infrastructure of expressways/highways. The Government has undertaken a programme to improve the standard of a number of significant national highways by 2013. The total length of expressways/highways is 364,657 km (226,587 miles). There are a total of 9,283,000 registered passenger automobiles, as well as 1,762,000 registered trucks and buses (2000).
* Air: Poland has ten major airports (in decreasing order of traffic: Warsaw, Kraków, Katowice, Gdańsk, Wrocław, Poznań, Szczecin, Rzeszów, Bydgoszcz and Łódź), a total of 123 airports and airfields, as well as three heliports. The number of passengers at Polish airports has consistently increased since 1991.
* Marine: the total length of navigable rivers and canals is 3,812 km (2,369 miles). The Polish merchant marine consists of 114 ships, with an additional 100 ships registered outside the country. The principal ports and harbours are: Port of Gdańsk, Port of Gdynia, Port of Szczecin, Port of Świnoujście, Port of Ustka, Port of Kolobrzeg, Gliwice, Warsaw, Wrocław.

The share of the telecom sector in the GDP is 4.4% (end of 2000 figure), compared to 2.5% in 1996. Nevertheless, despite high expenditures for telecom infrastructure (the coverage increased from 78 users per 1000 inhabitants in 1989 to 282 in 2000) the coverage mobile cellular is 850 users per 1000 people (2006)

* Telephones - mobile cellular: 32.5 million (Raport Telecom Team 2006)
* Telephones - main lines in use: 12.5 million (Raport Telecom Team 2005)

The Polish landscape consists almost entirely of the North European Plain, with an average height of 173 m (568 ft). The Sudetes (including the Karkonosze) and the Carpathian Mountains (including the Tatra mountains) form the southern border. This is also where Poland’s highest point is found: Rysy, at 2,499 m (8,199 ft).

Several large rivers cross the plains: the Vistula (Wisła), Oder (Polish:Odra), Warta and the (Western) Bug rivers. Poland also contains over 9,300 lakes, predominantly in the northern part of the country. Masuria (Mazury Lake District) forms the largest and most-visited lake district in Poland. Remnants of ancient forests, such as Białowieża Forest, still exist.

Poland enjoys a temperate climate, with cold, cloudy, moderately severe winters and mild summers with frequent showers and thunderstorms.

Poland (Polish: Polska), officially the Republic of Poland (Polish: Rzeczpospolita Polska), is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine and Belarus to the east; and the Baltic Sea, Lithuania and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north. It also shares a maritime border with Denmark and Sweden. The total area of Poland is 312,683 sq km (120,728 sq mi), making it the 69th largest country in the world. Poland’s population is over 38.5 million people, concentrated mainly in large cities such as the historical capital Kraków and the present capital Warsaw.

The first Polish state was created in 966, within territory very similar to the present boundaries of Poland. Poland became a kingdom in 1025, and in 1569 it cemented a long association with the Grand Duchy of Lithuania by uniting to form the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The Commonwealth collapsed in 1795. Poland regained its independence in 1918 after World War I but lost it again in World War II, occupied by Nazi Germany and Soviet Union, emerging several years later as a communist country within the Eastern Bloc under control of the former Soviet Union. In 1989, communist rule was overthrown and Poland became what is informally known as the “Third Polish Republic”. Today, as the 6th most populated member state of the European Union, Poland is a liberal democracy made up of sixteen voivodeships (Polish: województwo). Poland is also a member of European Union, NATO, the United Nations, OECD and the World Trade Organization.