Outside the neighborhood

"Real potential these days lies outside the EU and we want to boost exports to those countries," said Undersecretary of State in the Ministry of Economy, Andrzej Kaczmarek.

In 2005 Polish exports to Africa grew by 40 percent, by 36 percent to South America and by 31 percent to Asia. In order to enhance those figures, the Ministry of Economy has taken steps to help entrepreneurs find markets for their products. Apart from creating a special document called 'The map of opportunities for Polish exports - outside the EU', the Ministry is also considering launching a Council for Export Promotion.

"This would be an advisory body supported with the intellectual backup of the Foreign Trade Research Institute," said Kaczmarek. "Both will be used in the future by the Polish Agency of Trade and Investment," he added.

Since May 2004, exports have been the driving force behind Polish GDP growth. "Polish exports are growing twice as fast as the world's exports," says Economy Minister Piotr Woźniak. In 2005 Poland's foreign-trade turn-over reached $190 (zł.596) million, which was a growth of 17 percent on 2004. Last year Poland's exports grew by 20 percent compared with 2004, amounting to $90 (zł.278) million. In Q1 of 2006 exports increased by a further 21 percent on Q1 2005.