Economy, Foreign Trade

During the Communist period Poland’s foreign trade was conducted mainly with other Communist states, notably the Soviet Union, East Germany, and Czechoslovakia. Trade with Western countries such as West Germany, the United States, France, the United Kingdom, and Italy grew to substantial proportions but remained much less than the former. After the fall of Communism, Poland began to expand its contacts with Western nations.

In the mid-1990s Poland’s imports included machinery, fuels and electrical power, chemicals, and food products. Exports included machinery, metals, chemicals, fuels and electrical power, and food products. Poland’s main suppliers of imports were Germany, Italy, Russia, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and France. The leading purchasers of exports were Germany, Russia, France, Italy, the United States, and the Netherlands.