Solving foreign trade puzzles in post-communist transition

This article deals with the foreign trade of East-Central European countrie s in post-communist transition. It is primarily concerned with explaining c ertain early transition developments, unexpected and often neglected by pol icy makers and experts alike. The contribution of foreign trade to the gene rally unexpected steep output fall registered by each of these countries is discussed, stressing the inevitability of the disappearance of distorted d emand patterns with the fall of communism and explaining why distorted dema nd was bound to affect not only the level of domestic output but also impor ts associated with the distorted demand. Exports to other former CMEA count ries therefore fell precipitously. Other issues analysed in the article con cern causes and beneficial effects of the rapid Westward reorientation of f oreign trade, as well as the disappearance of another legacy of the communi st past, East-Central European Countries', that is dual export structure.