Prospects for Polish Foreign Trade: Analysis and Recommendations

Abstract

The following paper was completed in June 1990 and was written primarily as a policy paper for the Polish Ministry of Foreign Economic Relations. While revising this paper for publication, we faced a dilemma of how to update our earlier analysis, which rapidly became outdated due to the speed of changes taking place in Poland, the Soviet Union and the rest of Eastern Europe. After much thought, we decided against simply updating data in the paper, as we realized that it could destroy the logical cohesiveness of our original analyses and recommendations. Therefore we decided to leave the earlier work unaltered, to stand as a document of thought about the change process then underway. We thought it more appropriate to provide readers with an epilogue, elaborating on major developments within the last six months and evaluating changing prospects for Polish trade.