Poland Launches Radical Economic Reform Program
The Solidarity-led government Sunday introduced radical economic reform legislation designed to break monopolies, cut subsidies, privatize industry and curb 900% inflation in Poland.
Deputy Prime Minister Leszek Balcerowicz told Parliament the new course will “open new perspectives of proper living, free development and fruitful and satisfying work.”
“The system we inherited from our predecessors can no longer exist,” he told a special session of the Sejm, the lower house of Parliament, with Prime Minister Tadeusz Mazowiecki looking on. Mazowiecki assumed office after the Communists were defeated in elections this year.
Poland must leave behind an economy “based on 19th-Century doctrines” of Marxism, said Balcerowicz, who is also the finance minister.
Noting the drop in production and the hyper-inflation that have rocked the Polish economy this year, he conceded that Poland is launching reform in “extremely unfavorable conditions.”
The program is expected to bring even sharper price increases as government subsidies are cut off and companies are forced to live off their own revenues.
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