ABSTRACT
In the light of about eight years of transition experience in the Central and Eastern European countries (CEECs), it remains a challenging task to look back to their original situation prior to the beginning of the agricultural transformation process, to compare targets and expectations with the outcome and to seek a fuller understanding of what has happened. The rate of inflation has varied considerably in individual CEE countries since the beginning of the transformation process. In Poland, an enormous increase, to more than 500 per cent, was experienced in 1990, though after successful stabilization programmes the rate was driven back to 20-30 per cent. Agriculture is far more important in the economies of the CEE countries than it is on average in the EU member states; in 1993, the shares in GDP were 7.8 per cent and 2.5 per cent, respectively.
