Luxembourg, 14/01/2000 (Agence Europe) - The European Unions statistical office, Eurostat, dedicated a report to trade between Poland and the EU. The report shows that in 1998 (the last year for reliable data) Poland imported goods worth EUR 28 billion from the EU while it exported roughly 16 billion worth to the EU market. Both flows showed a strong growth over 1997, with exports up by 14% and imports by 12%. Its trade deficit with the EU was 12 billion. Poland accounted for about 3% of the total EU trade, and is the EU's fourth biggest export market, after the USA, Switzerland and Japan, and ahead of Norway and China.
The EU is by far Poland's main trading partner: it represents 66% of its imports and 68% of its exports. Germany, Italy and France took places one to three, while ten EU Member States were among the top fifteen of Poland's trade partners. Trade with Russia declined in comparison to 1997, and now ranks in fourth place, whereas the USSR had been Poland's first trading partner at the end of the eighties. The USA ranked seventh, while both Republic of Korea and China were ahead of Japan.
In 1998, most of Poland imported almost as much as Denmark (intra-EU and extra-EU imports) and more than Ireland, Portugal, Finland and Greece. Its exports were slightly above those of Greece. Its ratio of import to exports came close to Portugal's ratio.
Close to one fifth of Poland's total exports and imports in 1998 were in primary materials, while manufactured articles represented the bulk of the trade with roughly four fifths of exports and imports. Imports of manufactured articles grew more than twice as fast and exports of manufactured articles grew almost three times as fast as those of primary materials over the past five years.