The aim of this paper is to assess the level of economic development and foreign relations of the countries forming the economic group Mercosur. Numerous economic indicators are used for the purpose of research and international comparisons. Most important are gross domestic product (GDP), national income, unemployment rate, inflation rate, foreign trade’s and investments’ share in GDP. Other measures, which are based on GDP, may be used for economic growth assessment. These are for example economy internationalization, activity level, openness and dependence and international competitiveness. After a brief introduction to the subject, the manner of calculating the indicators that are used for such an assessment more rarely is described. Then the indicators calculated for the current Mercosur member states are analysed.
The integration of European Communities have gone through several stages, namely free- trade zone, customs union, common market; at present it enters the stage of monetary- economic union. The main tasks connected with this stage are creation of a common monetary unit and coordination of economic policy by means of the European System of Central Banks and the European Central Bank itself. Curtain elements of political union are formed together with successive stages of economic integration. Poland, according to the treaty concerning association with European Communities, is supposed to go through radical structual transformations on its way to the membership.
The aim of the current research is to study the effects of economic integration within the Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf (CCASG) and its influence on the trade within the region as well as with other countries. The trade development of member countries of the Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf was analysed with the help of gravitation model in the context of the existing agreements of the trading preferences on the Middle East and North Africa. It was proved that establishment of CCASG made extremely positive influence on the development of the intraregional trade. It was also discovered that economic integration of the CCASG members showed rather the effect of trade creation than the effect of trade diversion. Signing of free trading agreement between the CCASG and the EU and between the CCASG and the USA had also positive results.