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~ Packeta ~

The rise of four Measured over the last five fully reported years, Poland’s
Though it will not be as familiar to most as the G7 or BRICS, ascent as an importer of German goods has been steady, with
another alliance of nations makes visible an important trend its eighth-place rank in 2019 jumping to sixth place in 2020
in the German export picture. The Visegrád Group, a.k.a. V4, and a solid fifth-place position in the subsequent three years
made up of four Central European nations with economic, to 2023. In the same time frame, China has lost in importance
cultural and other ties (the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland here, taking a second-place rank in 2019 to fourth place in
and Slovakia) and named after the Hungarian city where 2022 and 2023. The mid-year report has unsettled even that
it was founded in 1991 illustrates well how Germany is position in Poland’s favour.
profiting from relatively new markets. Viewed as a bloc, V4,
all of whose members joined the EU with its fifth expansion Twenty-nine in the wings
in 2004, bests even the top-rank position of the USA as Not only Poland, nor even the V4 configuration, is the sole
purchasers of German goods, taking in together over 100 catalyst of this development. Central and Eastern Europe
billion euros in German exports in the first half of 2024, in general have both proved a boon to Germany’s economy,
according to data published by the Federal Statistical Office. so that a fall in ranking on the Far Eastern trading turf
Ranked so, excluding the EU as a unit, it would rise to the is matched by a rise on another, one closer to home base.
pole position, to be followed by, in order, the US, France, Cathrina Claas-Mühlhäuser, Chair of the Ost-Ausschuss
the Netherlands and China. Poland, taken separately, is der Deutschen Wirtschaft (German Eastern Business
already nestled between the latter two as Germany’s fourth Association), notes the continuing importance of the 29
largest export partner—for the first time ahead of the market nations of this targeted region, which includes 18 non-EU
presumed by many to be its primary stomping ground, and members, as buttresses to Germany’s overall trade, accounting
currently as regards exports only at position five: China. as they do for almost 19 percent. German companies have
seen fit to position themselves in not only this area, but

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