Poland, in Bold Step, Lifts Key Economic Controls

WARSAW — Poland’s Communist leadership took a major new step Friday toward dismantling the country’s socialist system as Parliament approved laws removing controls on privately owned businesses and encouraging foreign investment.

Economists and party activists said that passage of the laws, which were the subject of a 14-month battle within the party and government apparatus, represents the first significant measures in a “second stage” of economic reform in Poland. The program was first announced by party leader Wojciech Jaruzelski 2 1/2 years ago but had been stalled ever since by bureaucratic resistance and high-level indecision.

The new laws, which were revived and strengthened after the appointment of a new government in October under Premier Mieczyslaw Rakowski, offer the private sector and foreign investors nearly equal conditions in the Polish economy with state-owned companies. They will, in theory, allow private entrepreneurs to start up firms without having obtained prior permits from authorities and guarantee them equal access to bank credits and supplies of raw materials.

The new law on economic activity also breaks ground within the Soviet Bloc by removing all limits on the size of a private business, meaning that Polish capitalists will be able to own factories with thousands of employees. Previously, private firms were limited to a maximum of 150 workers.

“We are no longer afraid of radical reforms,” government spokesman Jerzy Urban said in explaining the measures. “The Poland you will see several years from now will have a different economy than it has had until now.”

Independent and opposition economists generally praise the reform laws but caution that it remains to be seen whether and how they will be implemented. In recent years, even far less generous provisions for private enterprise were blocked on a day-to-day basis by the party and government bureaucracy.