The Selected Topics for Comparison in Visegrad Four Countries

Visegrad Group is a group of four countries in Central Europe, namely the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, and Hungary. These countries share not only a similar history, but also similar economic development (measured for example by Gross Domestic Product (GDP)) and geo-political ideas. Nowadays, the economic development of every country and its competitiveness on the world market is supported by the creation of innovation (knowledge-based economy), especially from an Industry 4.0 point of view. The aim of this article is to compare the Visegrad Four (V4) from different perspectives. Firstly, the comparison of GPD development is done, next the analysis of foreign trade. The article presents the results of a comparative analysis of changes in innovativeness and competitiveness of the V4 economies over a period of 5 years. The Global Innovation Index (GII) shows the level of innovation of most countries in the world. Reports publishing GII were established thanks to the cooperation of Cornwall University with INSEAD (fr. Institut europeen d'administration des affaires) Business School and World Intellectual Property Organization. The Summary Innovation Index (SII) was used in the European Innovation Scoreboard, as well as the Global Competitiveness Report and Global Competitiveness Index (GCI). The analysis shows that all members of V4 are so called moderate innovators. The Czech Republic begins to diverge from other member states in terms of SII, GII and it has been increasing its GCI as well. Poland occupies one of the last positions in the V4 innovation ranking, where Hungary was the weakest in terms of competitiveness in 2016. However, the mutual connection between GDP and above mentioned indexes shows relatively surprising results.