In contrast voivodships from Income group three (shaded in light grey on
map 1), have a value for GDP capita that is below 80% of the national level. These
regions are more dominantly located in the northeast and down the eastern wall of
the country. The downside to this is that while voivodships from income groups one
and two benefit from direct foreign trade contact with the west and neighboring
countries to the south, eastern wall voivodships border Belarus and Ukraine.
These two neighboring countries did not benefit from the technical and financial
assistance that characterised Polish-EU co-operation at the start of reform and
likewise did not receive an Interim Agreement in the early 1990’s governing the coordination
and expansion of foreign trade operations as well as market access to
the west. Growth and restructuring, necessary for the modernisation progress in
Belarus and Ukraine has therefore lagged behind the pace of that observed in
Poland, directly affecting income levels and welfare creation. As a result, these
countries did not regain their 1990 levels of GDP output until after 1999 – four
years later than Poland. Opportunities for export expansion between the Eastern
wall voivodships of Poland with Ukraine and Belarus has therefore been largely
limited to basic necessity goods for the first ten years of transition. GDP output in
income group three voivodships is also limited by their economic structures, which
has traditionally focused on large-scale agricultural production, forestry and fishing.
This pattern of development can be traced back to the partitions of the 18th Century
and the period under Russian control. The period under Communist rule in Poland