Z ziemi włoskiej do Polski - Polsko-włoska współpraca gospodarcza w latach 1970-2010

Poland and Italy have a long history of cooperation in several domains. Much has been written about cooperation in the field of arts and politics, much less about economic relations. This paper aims to contribute to fill this gap in literature.
The paper analyses the last 40 years of Polish-Italian economic relations starting from the rise to power of Edward Gierek in 1970, who in the attempt to modernize Polish socialist economy looked Westward in order to acquire capitals and technology to boost growth in the country. In this period Italy became for Poland an important provider of capitals and technology. On the other hand, the year 2010 is the last year for which complete statistics are available at the moment of drafting.
In the first part a short synthesis of the history of Polish economy in the years 1970-2010 is provided, with a particular attention to the issue of international trade. In the following section a detailed description of the trends in bilateral trade between Poland and Italy is given in the attempt to identify cause-effect relationships which link historical facts and the dynamics of foreign trade. After that the paper analyses the composition of Polish-Italian trade and its evolution over the years in order to find out what have been the most important sectors in bilateral trade and how they have changed. Finally, an overview of cooperation in the field of investments is provided illustrating the main Italian investments in Poland and their meaning for the Polish economy also mentioning Polish investments in Italy.