Geographical differentiation of the Polish foreign trade and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to present the structure of Poland’s trade with
its main partners in 2015–2020. We argue that the geographical diversity of
Polish trade – a positive balance with the EU countries and a negative one
with other countries – results from the structure of imports and exports. In
turn, this structure depends on the category of commodity being traded in.
Another important factor in the context of the economic order is the ease of
doing business. However, the global economy, including the EU, has been
severely affected by the coronavirus pandemic outbreak, which also has had
its impact on the Polish market: we can observe a significant weakening of
Polish foreign trade in the first quarter of 2020.
In the first part of the paper, we analyse Poland’s foreign trade in the
period 2015–2020. Going into detail, we discuss the diversification of trade
with regard to Poland’s major trading partners. For many years, Germany,
the Czech Republic and the United Kingdom have been Poland’s main export
partners.
The categories of commodities that Poland trades in are recognised as
the main cause of the disproportion in the trade balance. Poland has been
achieving good export results due to the successively increasing geographical
diversification of the directions of Polish trade expansion.