icit below 3% of
GDP. Unemployment has risen steadily, however, to about 16%. The trade
deficit is also a problem, in part due to recession in Western Europe,
Poland's main customer. The new government elected in September 1993
is politically to the left of its predecessor but is continuing the
reform process.
National product:
GDP - purchasing power equivalent - $180.4 billion (1993 est.)
National product real growth rate:
4.1% (1993 est.)
National product per capita:
$4,680 (1993 est.)
Inflation rate (consumer prices):
37% (1993)
Unemployment rate:
15.7% (December 1993)
Budget:
revenues:
$24.3 billion
expenditures:
$27.1 billion, including capital expenditures of $1.5 billion (1993
est.)
Exports:
$13.5 billion (f.o.b., 1993 est.)
commodities:
machinery 24%, metals 17%, chemicals 12%, fuels and power 11%, food
10% (1992)
partners:
Germany 31.4%, Netherlands 6.0%, Italy 5.6%, Russia 5.5% (1992)
Imports:
$15.6 billion (f.o.b., 1993 est.)
commodities:
fuels and power 17%, machinery 36%, chemicals 17%, food 8% (1992)
partners:
Germany 23.9%, Russia 8.5%, Italy 6.9%, UK 6.7% (1992)
External debt:
$47 billion (1993); note - Poland's Western government creditors
promised in 1991 to forgive 30% of Warsaw's $35 billion official debt
immediately and to forgive another 20% in 1994; foreign banks agreed
in early 1994 to forgive 45% of their $12 billion debt claim
Industrial production:
growth rate 7% (1993)
Electricity:
capacity:
31,530,000 kW
production:
137 billion kWh
consumption per capita:
3,570 kWh (1992)
Industries:
machine building, iron and steel, extractive industries, chemicals,
shipbuilding, food processing, glass, beverages, textiles
Agriculture:
accounts for 7% of GDP and a much larger share of labor force; 75% of
output from private farms, 25% from state farms; productivity remains
low by European standards; leading European producer of rye, rapeseed,
and potatoes; wide variety of other crops and livestock; major
exporter of pork products; normally self-sufficient in food
Illicit drugs:
illicit producers of opium for domestic consumption and amphetamines
for the international market; transshipment point for Asian and Latin
American illicit drugs to Western Europe
Economic aid:
donor:
bilateral aid to non-Communist less developed countries (1954-89),
$2.2 billion
recipient:
Western governments and instituti