More trade needed East of the border to reduce deficit declares Ministry

The Economy Ministry's Department of Analyses and Forecasts has announced that the foreign trade deficit with former Soviet Union countries amounts to approximately $2 billion and accounted for 23% of last year's total shortfall. These countries are the second most important markets for the Polish economy, after EU countries. The turnover in trade with former Soviet states increased from $8.1 billion in 1997 to $9.2 billion in 2001 and this was mostly due to increased imports. The value of products bought by Polish companies increased to $5.6 billion last year while exports dropped from $4.5 billion to $3.6 billion between 1997 and 2001. " After the 1998-1999 crisis there is a slow improvement in exports to East European markets both in terms of their value and the types of product," announced the Economy Ministry, also saying that the process of re-entering former Soviet markets will be very long and expensive due to the increasing foreign trade deficit. (Prawo i Gospodarka, p. 7) M.M.