THE ANALYSIS OF FOREIGN TRADE DEVELOPMENT IN THE COUNTRIES OF VISEGRAD FOUR

Countries of Visegrad Four, namely the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, and Poland, share not only geographical position in the Central Europe, but also similar history, similar geo-political ideas, and, moreover, similar economic development. It is relatively well-known fact that even these countries have been developing in terms of Gross Domestic Product, there are some differences. This article deals with the analysis of foreign trade development since 2000, because export and import of goods and services are crucial for sustainable development for almost all countries around the world, and it is also part of GDP formula in every open economy. The aim is to analyse the development of foreign trade in Visegrad Four contries and verify whether this development is similar or not. In all analysed countries, significant increase in the terms of export of goods and services has been observed. However, the analysis of export of services shows relatively unexpected development, where the share of this export on total export have been decreasing in all analysed countries. Moreover, one of the basic indicators for evaluation of foreign trade is the export / import ratio, where this indicator describes the ability of the country to cover its import needs by its own export. The analysis shows that even all analysed countries have this share currently over 100%, the development is far from steady. This irregularity of development can be understand as a proof that the export has only autonomous part in GDP formula, while import has autonomous and indigenous parts.