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Poland Extractive and Manufacturing Industries
The range of products manufactured in Polish plants
increased
greatly in the postwar years, mostly through construction
of new
facilities in the period of accelerated industrialization.
By the
1980s, heavy industry produced processed metals (mainly
iron,
steel, zinc, lead, and copper) and derivative products;
chemicals; a wide variety of transportation equipment,
including
ships and motor vehicles; electrical and nonelectrical
machines
and equipment; and electronic and computer equipment. The
most
important light industry was textiles.
Under the central planning system, statistics on
production
by individual industries and on their relative shares in
total
industrial production through the communist period were
distorted
by administrative price fixing and unequal distribution of
industrial subsidies (see
table 17, Appendix). In general,
however, between 1960 and 1989 the relative importance of
food
processing declined steadily while that of the engineering
and
chemical industries grew steadily. The share of light
industry
declined early in the period but then increased under the
stimulus of expanded Soviet export markets. The relative
importance of the metallurgical, mineral, and wood and
paper
industries remained basically unchanged. Within the
engineering
group, the machine building, transport equipment, and
electrotechnical and electronic industries increased in
relative
importance between 1960 and 1989.
The engineering and chemical industries received a
considerable injection of Western technology, including
patents
and licenses, under the technology import program of the
1970s
(see Reliance on Technology in the 1970s
, this ch.). In
the late
1980s and early 1990s, however, economic crisis,
recession, and
postcommunist reform measures brought a drastic decline in
output
in those industries. For example, output of the artificial
fertilizer industry dropped 32 percent between 1989 and
1990,
mostly because rising fertilizer prices reduced domestic
demand.
A sharper drop was prevented by quadrupling fertilizer
exports.
In 1991 output of nitrogenous fertilizers remained stable,
but
output of phosphoric fertilizers again dropped sharply.
Some existing manufacturing facilities could support
expansion of production, but others required modernization
before
they could be exploited efficiently to meet Poland's new
economic
priorities. Other facilities offered no possibility of
expansion
or modernization and were simply closed. In the Polish
steel
industry, which was second only to that of the Soviet
Union in
Comecon, only two plants had been built between 1945 and
1982.
The Lenin Iron and Steel Plant at Nowa Huta, the largest
in the
country, was built near Kielce in 1954 with aid from the
Soviet
Union. Although some plants were modernized in the
intervening
years, most of the prewar Polish steel plants featured low
productivity, low-quality metal, and poor working
conditions, as
well as very high pollution levels.
With the help of foreign experts, the Bielecki
government
undertook a number of sectoral studies. The objective was
to draw
attention to the existing obstacles to growth and to
increase
international competitiveness of industrial enterprises in
various sectors. Four major restructuring programs were
prepared
in cooperation with United Nations experts. They included
improving the management and modernization of the
agricultural
machinery industry, restructuring the production of
fertilizers,
improving management and technology in the pharmaceutical
industry, and increasing the degree of automation in
various
branches of industry.
Data as of October 1992
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