given its focus on heavy industrial production and resource extraction, did not
address the needs to balance the economic structures of the country’s eastern
regions, but rather reinforced them. The effects of geographical location as well as
the structure of output have therefore influenced volumes of foreign direct
investment into these voivodships. In fact, all five voivodships from income group
three accounted jointly for just 10% of the total foreign investment injected into the
country up until the end of 2006 (PAIZ, 2007).
Poland has remained the most attractive transition country for foreign
investors since the start of economic reform, though investment has been sunk
primarily into those voivodships possessing abundant supplies of highly qualified,
skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled labour and which have the capacity to expand
output and stimulate foreign trade (Tiusanen, 2006). These results are supported
by research carried out by Domański, who identified that foreign capital is largely
concentrated in metropolitan centres (Domański, 2003). However, while past
research rightly identifies the exclusion of the eastern voivodships from the bulk of
foreign trade and investment opportunities, membership of the EU, linking Poland
to investment funds for infrastructure and industrial development is beginning to
positively influence rates of growth in GDP capita and labour productivity.