The correlation between the agricultural productivity and the export performance of the agro-food foreign trade in the Visegrád Group countries following accession to the European Union

In this paper we have sought to answer three research questions: what was the difference between the agricultural export growth rates of the Visegrád Group countries following the EU accession; how did the multifactor productivity in the countries under study evolve; and could a correlation be observed between the growth rates of the multifactor productivity and of the agricultural exports. The average annual growth rate of the multifactor productivity was highest in Poland, followed by the growth rate in Slovakia, in Hungary and in the Czech Republic. The average annual growth rates of the exports of agricultural raw materials and of the total food economy had identical rankings except for Hungary. The results of the analysis allow the presumption that the different annual average growth rates of the multifactor productivity of agriculture have also influenced the development of the agricultural export performance of the countries under study.