Poland: the economy - week 2 - Julie De Vreese

Hi everyone,

We are now almost at the end of our wonderful week in Poland and it has become clear to me that Poland is a fast growing country, certainly when we look at the economy. Join us as we took a trip to the tourism office for a quick search through the travel guides…

Before it joined the EU in 2004, Poland mostly did trade with countries like Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Slovenia. Now, they are one of the healthiest, largest and fastest growing economies in Europe.

The travel guide also tells us that Poland mostly imports goods with destination industry, and not so much for own consumption. I can figure out for myself why that is. As read in Anou’s blog, farms are very common and also important for the economy in Belarus. As we traveled through some of the biggest cities in Poland such as Warsaw, Krakow, Hirschberg etc., we saw a lot of farms here too and we concluded that the agricultural situation is somewhat the same in Poland as in Belarus. Poland has a lot of private farms in their agricultural sector, and if they are going to keep growing like they are now, they can become a leading sector in Poland and the leading producer of food in the European Union.

Poland also owes its good economic situation to the rise of tourism. We could see this with our own eyes as we visited some of the biggest cities and important sites of Poland. The tourism started to increase thanks to Poland’s accession to the European Union. It’s a very important part of the country’s service market. The most attractive sites to visit are: the cities of Warsaw, Krakow, Wroclaw, Poznan, Lublin and Torun, of which we have visited some. Also the historical site of Auschwitz concentration camp and all of the beautiful lakes off course. This all helps the economy to keep on growing. Our travel guide told us that Poland was one of the most visited countries by foreign tourists in 2008 and we couldn’t disagree that after spending our week here.

See you next time with more interesting stories to tell.

 xXxJulie

sources:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Poland#Growth_of_Poland
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poland#Corporations