Barbara Szejgiec-Kolenda

Abstract Taking into account foreign trade in goods the process of internationalization of the Polish economy has been uneven not only within the scope of foreign trade operators and its product and geographical structure, but also within the territorial perspective across the country. During the period after 1990, the basic structures of the “export space” of Poland were transformed. At the same time, these structures remained, to some extent, embedded in a centrally planned economy, especially in the industrialization processes that have been taking place since the World War II. The aim of the paper is identification and delimitation of areas of export concentration (AEC) as well as to provide for more systematic information on the changes taking place in the export space of the country resulted from the competitiveness and economic power of local economies. The obtained results were related to the general changes in the the country’s spatial structure, including basic theoretical concepts and strategic documents. AEC shall be considered as a contiguous geographical area with the above-average importance of exports for the local economy, determined by several conditions: (a) exports per capita of the LAU 1 unit is higher than the national average; (b) exports in relation to sold industrial output in the LAU 1 unit is higher than the national average; (c) total exports of AEC exceeds 1% of total exports from Poland; (d) AEC respects the principle of territorial continuity. These conditions were applied for the years: 1995 (the period immediately after the economic transition), 1997 (the period of locating foreign investments in the country), 2000 (the period after the crisis in the Eastern markets), 2005 (at the start of the full integration of Poland into the European Union), 2007 (the period of favourable exports performance resulted from the accession to the EU), 2009 (the first wave of economic crisis) and 2013 (the present years). The primary unit of study is the county (LAU 1). The analysis was conducted in US dollars (USD) based on materials from EXTRA- and INTRASTAT systems. The spatial structures of units considered as AEC in the analysed years is a synthetic picture of exports space of Poland. It may be assumed that it creates a polygon with vertices constituting the “poles of the global economy”, which are: Warsaw, Rzeszów, Cracow, Upper Silesian conurbation, Wroclaw, Słubice and Gdańsk. At the same time, in Western Poland, a zone with strong international relations is becoming increasingly apparent, it covers a large part of the LAU 1 units of the provinces of wielkopolskie, dolnośląskie and lubuskie voivodeships. Spatial structures related to industrialization processes taking place during the period of centrally planned economy proved to be quite stable. Despite the shift in the main exports centres from the south of Poland to the west, the observed changes were not spectacular. In favourable economic conditions, there was a deglomeration of exports, but these changes were not of a lasting nature. During the crisis period we observed a regression, which excluded the emergence of new sustainable AEC, among others. in the east of Poland. Thus the changes anticipated during the initial phase of the transformation in the spatial structure of the country were probably premature. The changes observed during this period reflected the fluctuations associated with the transformation process itself. Regardless of the stability of the general spatial structure, the dynamics of the emergence (as well as the “collapse”) of AEC is a good measure of the transformation of individual centres and industrial districts of Poland after 1989. There has been confirmed such processes as: economic contraction of Łódź, relative decrease in the role of the Upper Silesian conurbation, gradual replacement of Poznań by Wrocław as the country’s second most important economic pole.

Barbara Szejgiec-Kolenda

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