Poland: Facts & Stats

ECONOMY

Industry:

Leading industries include food processing, fuel, metals and metal products, chemicals, coal mining, glass, shipbuilding, and textiles.

Light Industry: Light industries were long relegated to a secondary position but, since the 1970s, Poland has increased its production of durable household articles and other consumer goods. In textiles, Polish machinery was geared to produce intermediate-quality yarn that could not be made into exportable products. Polish finishing machinery was also outmoded. Although textile enterprises had been privatized quite early, they nevertheless remained too labor-intensive and used materials inefficiently. On the other hand, Polish combed woolens and linen products were rated as potentially competitive in the European market.

Automotive Industry: In 1992 the Polish automotive industry was expecting to modernize through a series of joint ventures with Western firms. In 1992 Fiat Corporation, the pioneer of Western automobile production in Eastern Europe since 1973, invested in Polish production of a new model at its Bielsko-Biala plant. Fiat was to arrange for export of a large part of the output of that model. Also in 1992, General Motors Europe, the European branch of the United States automotive giant, was expected to begin assembling cars in Warsaw by agreement with the Warsaw-based Passenger Car Plant. Volvo of Sweden planned to produce buses, trucks, and tractors at a plant near Wroclaw following the signing of a joint venture agreement in early 1992.

Construction Machinery: Under license, with Western firms, Polish machinery plants produced mobile cranes, heavy truck axles, hydraulic equipment, truck-mounted concrete mixers, and other construction machinery. In the 1990s, the highly centralized, bureaucratic construction machine industry was reorganized into a large number of small- and medium-sized private firms. The reorganization targeted expansion of the housing construction industry, which received high priority in reform planning. The second goal of this reorganization was to revive demand for the relatively modern and sophisticated construction machines that the Polish industry was able to produce.

Shipbuilding: Polish shipbuilding expanded rapidly in the 1960s and 1970s. In the 1980s, the industry included six shipyards, twenty-one equipment factories, and three research and development centers, altogether employing about 57,000 people. In that decade, Poland became the fifth largest producer of ships in the world, exporting most of its products to the Soviet Union. At the end of the 1980s the industry suffered greatly from drastic reduction in orders from the Soviet Union and other customers. Nevertheless, the shipbuilding firms were able to attract many Western licenses, and they retained a highly skilled labor force. If modernized and restructured, the industry had the potential to significantly accelerate its production of modern ships, including fishing vessels, factory ships, trawlers, car ferries, container vessels, roll on-roll off ships, and tankers. The Gdynia Shipyard was capable of building very large bulk cargo ships, but it operated at only 30 percent of capacity in 1991. Large new contracts were expected to more than double that level of production by 1994. In 1992 it seemed probable that the shipyard's very high debt would be eased by a two-step transition, first into a partnership with the State Treasury and ultimately into a private enterprise. In 1991 the Ministry of Industry completed a restructuring program for the entire shipbuilding industry in cooperation with Western experts.

Agriculture:

Poland has 18,727,000 hectares of agricultural land (about 60 percent of the country's total area), 14,413,000 hectares were used for crop cultivation, 265,000 for orchards, and about 4,048,500 for meadows and pastures. In most areas, soil and climatic conditions favored a mixed type of farming. The most important crops are grains, of which the highest yields come from wheat, rye, barley, and oats. Other major crops are potatoes, sugar beets, fodder crops, flax, hops, tobacco, and fruits. Pork and dairy farmers remain competitive. Milk and pork production have recovered from the transition from the centrally planned system of fixed prices to the market economy. Dairy plants that had been organized as cooperatives have successfully adopted modern processing and packing technologies, and planned development of dairy products has helped maintain market demand.

Agriculture employs almost one third of the total Polish work force but contributes less than 4% to the gross domestic product (GDP). Productivity is on the whole not high. There are over 2 million private farms in Poland. Most of which are small - 8 hectares (ha) on average. These farms are often made up of separate pieces of land spread over some area. Over half of all farming households in Poland produce only for their own needs with little, if any, commercial sales. As a result traditional, family-based small farm are under threat as the younger generation drift from the countryside toward the cities.

Research & Development:

Poland is becoming an interesting location for research and development investments. Multinational companies such as: ABB, Delphi, GlaxoSmithKline, Google, Hewlett–Packard, IBM, Intel, LG Electronics and Microsoft have set up Research & Development centers in Poland. Motorola in Kraków, Siemens in Wroc?aw and Samsung in Warszawa are one of the largest owned by those companies. Over 40 centers and 4,500 researchers make Poland the biggest Research & Development hub in Central and Eastern Europe. Companies chose Poland because of the availability of highly qualified labor force, presence of universities, support of authorities, and the largest market in Central Europe.

80% of Poland's current investors are contented with their choice and willing to reinvest. In 2006, Intel decided to double the number of employees in its Research & Development centre in Gda?sk.

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