Abstract:

The Visegrad Group is an alliance of the four Central European countries: the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia. One of the main aims of Visegrad Group is to advance economic cooperation. This paper is to analyse selected economic conditions of the Visegrad countries: sectors and structures of economies, economic growth, international trade. The Visegrad countries need to work on their economic performance since their GDP per capita is way behind the EU average. The pace of economic growth is higher than the EU average. However, one should note that they are still in the catching-up process with the EU average in terms of economic performance. Concerning international trade, over 70 % of the Visegrad countries’ trade is done with the EU countries. Germany remains as the top trading partner for the Visegrad country with a share of at least 19 % of total trade for each Visegrad economy. It seems that the trade potential within the Visegrad Group has not been fully used. The Visegrad countries shall use its alliance in the form of the Visegrad Group to further enhance their economic cooperation resulting in the higher level of their economic performance.