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Polish industry includes over 380 thousand business units. The vast majority of the industrial enterprises are privately owned. In 2003, 99,9% of all companies were in private property (of which 98.2% were in hands of Polish nationals, 1.3% were foreign companies operating in Poland and 0.5% were joint-ventures with the majority share of private capital). The private sector manufactures around ¾ of industrial products and secures jobs of almost 80% of Polish industrial employees. According to the data of 2004, the majority of industrial businesses were in processing (98.5%), and within this category the primary group were metal processing companies (over 52 thousand). Other big groups were clothing and fur industry, furniture, and wood processing sectors. More information on the significance of individual industrial sectors in Poland can be found in the chapter “Share of individual industry sectors in the generation of GDP” . The structure of Polish economy has changed dramatically over the last 15 years. The service sector has gained in importance, and the significance of industry has diminished. Today, the industry generates only about ¼ of value added of Polish GDP (see Chart 25.1). These changes were the effect of both dynamic development of service sector – which is a global trend – and a profound restructuring of ineffective national industrial companies in Poland in 1990s. This process was accompanied by the development of modern industrial sectors, which was feasible mainly due to inflow of foreign investment. After a temporary crisis in economy in 1999-2003, Polish industry has witnessed one of the most dynamic growths among the EU member states. In 2004, the increase in the sold production of industry has risen by 11.7%, with the EU average at 2.1%. One very important change of the last 10 or 15 years has been the rapid increase of export of industrial products, with an increasing share of highly processed products. At the moment, the most important group of export are electrical and machine products. Other significant groups are chemical and metallurgy products. Chart 25.1 | Poland’s GDP in 2004 (total:100.0) | | Gross value added | 87.7, including | | Industry | 23.7 | | Agriculture, forestry | 2.9 | | Construction | 4.9 | | Services total | 56.3 | Source: Poland 2005 Industry report of the Ministry of Economy and Labour, available at
http://www.mgip.gov.pl/NR/rdonlyres/
0C489E64-810B-4AF5-97BD-82FBB82EC12D/14957/
Rapprzemysl2005.pdf
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