China Research

A discussion forum on emerging markets, mainly China – from a macro, micro, institutional and corporate angle.

Poland’s move from an emerging to an emerged “top 20” country – a genuine success story

April 8, 2026

Many international analysts seem to be surprised by the economic rise of Poland during the past 35 years. But they should not. Poland’s positive way forward was clearly visible during all these years. Sure, there were years when less promising steps were made – to the right or to the left – and when the speed of reforms was lowered. However, Poland never left the road of economic reforms. This fact explains very well its rise to the 20th largest economy in the world, passing by even Switzerland.

Very weak starting point in 1990 – but clear strategy to move forward

The planned economy in Poland fell during my time as a chief economist at a major Swedish bank. Contrary to many colleagues, I became very curious about the economic potential of the emerging democracies in Central and Eastern Europe despite their weak starting position, particularly when it came to Poland and the Baltic states. In the early 1990s, my written pieces on the enormous potential of Poland were not yet published digitally but I found an internet source in Swedish from 2007 (https://www.varldenidag.se/nyheter/sverige-ar-fortfarande-i-en-tillvaxtekonomi/35348)

Anyway, the very beginning of Poland’s transformation into a market economy and other competitive structures were not easy to accomplish because of all the economic and institutional shortcomings from the planned economy. However, I always got the impression during my frequent visits to Warsaw and the meetings with Polish ministers, central bank governors and colleagues there that Poland persued a clear strategy of steadily moving forward and becoming more competitive in the increasingly globalizing economy. The strong ambition of steadily improving institutional standards played obviously a decisive role in Poland’s successful catching-up process.

Striking major achievements

In 1990, the Polish GDP per capita amounted to modest USD 6 700 or 38 percent of EU average and 35 years later to more than 55 000 or 85 percent of EU average. According to the IMF, Poland reached in 2025 the number 20 position when calculating total GDP. This is indeed a remarkable achievement and has been widely appreciated in global media.

A decisive contribution to this amazing development came without doubt from Poland’s preparations for its EU entry in 2004 and for the continuous institutional commitments after having managed EU membership. Major investments in higher education and modern technology – and, thus a competent labor force – explain as well why Poland could perform so positively in the past few decades. Considerable investment funding by the EU was certain also responsible for Poland’s positive development during the past 20 years.

It can be summarized that Poland achieved an annual GDP-growth rate of almost 4 percent in the past 20 years, clearly above EU average. In 2025, Polish GDP growth was 3.6 percent for the year as a whole and 4 percent for Q4.

Conclusion: The Polish example manifests clearly the decisive role of lasting institutional improvements for the catching-up development of an emerging market. Today, Poland can be described as an emerged country with nowadays good OECD standards, competitiveness and growth potential.

But also Poland must work on continuous stabilization and improvements of its political and economic conditions. Or as Nobel Price winner Paul Samuelson once told me that “globalization does not give time for comfortable ineffectiveness”.

Hubert Fromlet
Affiliate Professor at the School of Business and Economics, Linnaeus University

“New global conditions for emerging country analysis”

February 23, 2026

Summary of the Keynote Address by professor Hubert Fromlet at the IIF International Research Conference & Award Summit (IIF-IRCAS), February 15, 2026, in Delhi / India  *

The world is changing and has always been changing. The same can be said about the characteristics of emerging markets and the analysis of this increasingly important group of countries. This includes the aspects and judgments of financial markets.

The future of emerging market analysis

It seems to be a safe forecast that politics will remain very important for the future analysis of emerging markets – probably increasingly important in a longer perspective. In this context, the analysis of China’s and Russia’s ambitions in the emerging world could become particularly interesting – certainly also the activities of the U.S. in emerging countries. The future positioning of the EU in emerging countries seems to be uncertain. Altogether, geopolitical ambitions of the three global superpowers will most probably gain further momentum in the analysis of emerging markets. 

Future geopolitical ambitions of the superpowers can also be related to the availability of commodities – some of them more attractive to industrial producers around the world than others, with their ups and downs. An interesting question may be the future of rare metals which should be a crucial topic also for India. Furthermore: To what extent can certain commodities be substituted in the long run?

Another issue of general analytical interest should be to what extent Western corporations will make their supply chains less risky and move purchasing and production closer to friendly countries or their own geographical hemisphere. This has been partly the case more recently – but less dramatically than originally apprehended. Probably, this will be mostly a China-related question. The role of the U.S. remains uncertain in this context.

Closely linked to the domestic political area is also the development of institutions which have been neglected for a long time in emerging market analysis. But no responsible economist should continue to do so in the future. We should not forget the scientific conclusions of Nobel laureate Douglass North who clearly demonstrated the positive correlation between institutions and economic growth (North 1993).

 It should be added that also long-term trends in demography in combination with educational investments deserve more special attention in the analysis of emerging markets. Such an angle will be particularly illuminating when it, for example, comes to India with its promising demographic outlook. This relationship will become more frequently examined in the future, i.e. to what extent the population increase of India can be managed by corresponding efforts in education, particularly for the younger population.

Certain macroeconomic indicators like GDP, inflation, government debt etc will, of course, be carefully examined by analysts in the future as well – despite the statistical shortcomings that doubtless exist in many emerging countries. But it should also be recognized that pure macroeconomic analysis cannot be considered as sufficient anymore. Trustworthy emerging-market analysts should also follow microeconomic and financial developments in emerging countries. Improving and well-working financial markets can contribute so much to the performance of an emerging country.

The brief summary above on future main topics for the analysis of emerging markets points clearly at continuous analytical mergers between mainly politics, economics, finance on the one side and corporate management on the other side.

Having said this, one may also foresee that future anaIysis of emerging markets will  create further fields of special attention. I still believe that sociology and psychology play an underestimated role on global financial markets but also as regards the analysis of emerging markets as such. Analysts still can try harder to understand the messages and plans of the political leaders in the U.S., Russia and China which – in my view – is not possible without a better psychological understanding of their political leaders.

Finally, I also would like to mention another three areas that will matter in the future analysis of emerging markets. I am speaking about the future developments of investments in IT / AI, the environment and health care – i.e. the development and application of new technology. Will the divide in these areas between different emerging countries increase further? This is certainly something to observe in the future, too. Especially AI still contains – apart from obvious opportunities – a lot of unforeseeable risks and threats both globally and for single emerging market countries.

Is there a new risk for uncontrolled herd behavior coming from AI exuberance and AI application with thinkable severe consequences – also for the emerging world (see also Fromlet 2004)? Or should the risk of being insufficiently ambitious in AI development be considered as larger? What about the risks of a painful future digital divide among emerging countries? No one can answer these questions with reasonable probability – neither AI supporter and Nobel Prize winner from 2025, Philippe Aghion (Aghion and INSEAD 2025), nor AI sceptic and Nobel Prize winner from 2024, Daron Acemoglu (Dizikes 2025).   

Summary – new or changing fields of future emerging-market analysis The analysis of emerging markets has been changing substantially in the past and will do so in the future. The following examples that have been mentioned above as future keys and contributions to the analysis of emerging markets look as follows (without ranking):

Traditional analytical issues of the past but still crucial beyond 2026 
¤ well-known macroeconomic indicators, e.g. GDP, inflation, current account, debt, etc
¤ microeconomic and corporate trends (including supply chains)
¤ financial market developments 
¤ education on all levels  
¤ institutional improvements.                                                                                                                    

Increasingly important issues more recently and beyond 2026
¤ Politics
¤ For non-Indian analysts: the future rise of India (the Indians themselves know about it)
¤ China, Russia, the U.S. and their attempt to create a new world order
¤ investments in IT / AI,
¤ future risks for financial (AI) bubbles and AI divide in the (emerging) world 
¤ environmental policy  
¤ energy demand and production                       
¤ demography 
¤ psychology and sociology. 

Finally, I would like  to thank once again for the invitation to speak today at the IIF. I do wish India and the IIF all the best for the future. Such an interesting country and academic institution (Fromlet 2024) – always worth-while visiting, also for analysts. Watching the screens in a trading room should not be enough for foreign emerging market analysts for receiving a correct and fair impression of the Indian “continent”! 

Hubert Fromlet, Linnaeus University     

* The whole presentation will be published in the March number of “Finance India” (edited by IIF)

References:
Aghion , Ph and INSEAD Knowledge (2025), “Will our institutions keep up with AI? https://knowledge.insead.edu/economics-finance/will-our-institutions-keep-ai

Dizikes, P (2025), “A Nobel laureate on the economics of artificial intelligence”, MIT Technology Review        (MIT Alumni News: 77), https://www.technologyreview.com/2025/02/25/1111207/a-nobel-laureate-on-the-economics-of-artificial-intelligence/

Fromlet, H (2004), “The Run to China: Another Example of herd Behavior?”, Economic & Financial Review, no 1, pp 103-124

Fromlet, H (2024), “China vs India – who wins in the long run?”, China Research, Linnaeus University, https://blogg.lnu.se/china-research/?p=3582

North, D C (1993), “Economic Performance through Time”, Nobel Prize Lecture, https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/economic-sciences/1993/north/lecture/

Advanced countries lose and emerging markets gain export momentum

October 29, 2025

Below, we examine the WTO statistics on the main exporting nations. Many advanced countries had quite bleak performances in 2024 due to weak global demand. Quite a number of emerging markets on the other hand achieved more favorable developments. The magnitude of trade damage caused by President Trump’s protectionism starting in 2025 remains to be seen.

China was still the largest exporting nation in the world after a 6-percent increase in current prices last year, giving the Middle Kingdom a global export share of almost 15 percent. This was partly made possible as a result of further Chinese progress in the emerging world, particularly in Africa and South America. China counts for roughly 7 percent of total global goods exports. For 2025, China is predicted to achieve record shipments in Africa, Latin America and Asia.

India remains lagging behind, Vietnam is catching up

Despite the enormous size of the country, India still has not advanced further than to number 18 of the globe’s leading exporting nations. This is sometimes regarded as disappointing. However, one should remember that India for a long time only had very limited foreign competition at home and for this reason insufficient conditions for exporting to the rest of the world on a broader scale of products. India as a country is still catching up also when it comes to exports and product diversification.

By the way, only a few emerging markets are among the top 20 exporting nations – but they dominate in the third group from number 21 to 30. Particularly in the medium and longer run, they will most probably improve their positions further.

In detail, the list of the 30 leading exporters of goods in 2024 looked as follows (in billion USD, in brackets all changes in percent and in current prices in, source WTO):

1    China 3577 (+6)   

2    U.S. 2065 (+2)

3    Germany 1682 (-1)

4    Netherlands 921 (-2)

5    Japan 707 (-1)

6    South Korea 684 (+8)

7    Italy 674 (0) 

8.   Hong Kong 64z6 (+12)

9     France 639 (+11)

10   Mexico 617 (+4)

11   UAE 604 (+6)

12   Canada 569 (0)

13    Belgium 536 (-6)

14    UK 513 (-2)

15    Singapore 506 (+6)

16    Taiwan 474 (+10)

17    Switzerland 447 (+6)

18    India 443 (+3)

19    Russia 433 (+2)

20    Spain 424 (0)

21    Vietnam 405 (+14)

22    Poland 380 (0)

23    Australia 341 (-8)

24    Brazil 337 (-1)

26    Malaysia 330 (+6)

26    Saudi Arabia 305 (-5)

27    Thailand 301 (+5)

2    Indonesia 265 (+2) 

29   Czech Republik 263 (+3)

30   Turkey 262 (+2)

Source: WTO.org

Asia in the lead regarding suppliers from emerging countries

Interestingly, Asian emerging countries had the most successful export performance in 2024 (but again, without knowing how much they are now affected by Trump’s ongoing protectionism). This position can be expected to remain in place in the foreseeable future. It also should be mentioned that particularly Vietnam benefited more recently from shifting global supply chains.

Surprisingly, Russia remained also in 2024 quite a successful exporting nation due to oil and gas exports to China, India and other countries still dealing substantially with Russia.

Conclusion: Trade statistics from the WTO remain illuminating, especially on the corporate level – for both purchasing, sales and production managers.

Hubert Fromlet
Affiliate Professor at the School of Business and Economics, Linnaeus University