Nicholas Farr, emerging Europe economist at Capital Economics, said: “While it’s difficult to know how the economy would have performed without EU membership, a comparison with eastern Europe’s non-EU countries suggests Poland has enjoyed particularly large dividends from integrating with western Europe.”
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Relatively cheap labour costs coupled with robust productivity has helped Polish manufacturers to keep prices competitive, incentivising the country’s European neighbours to tap into its exports.
However, Farr said “this is just one part of the story. Poland’s focus on improving the productivity of its workforce has helped it excel relative to others in eastern Europe too. Poland has a very good education system for a country at its stage of development.”