Foreign Trade in Central Europe: The Analysis of Openness
Foreign Trade in Central Europe: The Analysis of Openness

Author(s): Jaroslav Kovarnik, Eva Hamplova
Subject(s): Business Economy / Management, Economic policy, International relations/trade
Published by: Masarykova univerzita nakladatelství
Keywords: Central Europe; The Czech Republic; export; foreign trade; import;
Summary/Abstract: The main topic of this article is the analysis of selected issues of foreign trade in the countries from central Europe, namely the Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Germany, and Austria. The Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia, and Hungary are member states of so-called Visegrad Four, and they can be considered as developing countries, at least in comparison with other two analysed countries. Germany and Austria are not only strong and powerful countries, but they are also important business partners for all V4 countries. This article focuses on selected aspects of foreign trade development, because foreign trade is considered to be very important for successful and sustainable development of almost all countries around the world. The article analyses development of foreign trade with goods and with services, where we have discovered relatively surprising results (the weakest country in terms of services has been Germany, where the country with highest net balance has been Poland). Consequently, the article analyses the dependency of analysed countries on foreign trade. Several indicators can be used for this analysis, where the authors have been used export on GDP ratio, import on GDP ratio, and turnover on GDP ratio. From theoretical point of view, strong and large economies should be less dependent on foreign trade, where weak and small countries should be more dependent. This fact has been proved, but on the other hand, although small and relatively weak countries are more dependent on foreign trade, the final benefit of net balance on GDP is relatively low, which is relatively surprising fact again.

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