Pewex () (short for Przedsiębiorstwo Eksportu Wewnętrznego – Internal Export Company) was a chain of hard-currency shops founded in 1972, during the Communist era in Poland that accepted payment only in United States dollars and other hard currencies, instead of the country's indigenous currency, the złoty.

History

Pewex was created in the 1970s to help combat Communist Poland's foreign currency deficit. The US dollars received by Poles could either be used for foreign travel or used at the Pewex shops.

Pewex offered a large number of imported items not available for purchase on the normal market. Items were purchased outside of the rationing system then in place, and customers did not have to queue up for items. Items sold include liquor, cigarettes, household appliances, candy, cars, computers and furniture. In 1987, Pewex was noted in a report issued by the United States Joint Publications Research Service to have had a sales volume of about 70 billion złoty, based on the then-official exchange rate to the US dollar of "nearly 300 zlotys to the dollar", with a revenue of 20 billion złoty.

Post-Communist government

thumb|Former Pewex warehouse in [[Podolany, Poznań|Podolany, Poznań.]]

As part of the peaceful transition of the economic system in Poland after the 1989 revolution in Poland, the Polish economy was privatised and the ownership of foreign currency was deregulated. This made the Pekao cheques obsolete and soon afterwards most of the goods that had only been available from Pewex stores started to be sold in private shops as well.

In 1991, Marian Zacharski, a former Polish spy who was sentenced to life in prison by American authorities for stealing military secrets and was subsequently released in a spy exchange, became the chain's owner and CEO.

In 1993, Pewex filed for bankruptcy for the first time. However, this and subsequent bankruptcy filings were rejected. In December 1995, it was announced that a debt restructuring deal would see a bank named Polski Bank Rozwoju, along with two French companies, swap a debt worth 93.6 million zlotys at the time for a majority stake in 1996. In 1997, the approximately 150 stores still operating under the Pewex brand were taken over by Concorde Investissement, and Pewex took over its immovable real estate portfolio as Towarzystwo Handlu i Nieruchomości Pewex S.A. (THiN Pewex). In 2003, THiN Pewex and Concorde Investissement merged, which resulted in the complete phase-out of the Pewex brand from the Polish market. In December 2013, the Pewex brand was re-activated as an online shop mostly selling novelty items operated by Monster Media Group, the owners of demotywatory.pl. The Pewex brand is also used by an otherwise unrelated chain of supermarkets in Italy.

See also

  • Baltona
  • Shortage economy
  • Eastern Bloc economies
  • Beryozka (Russian retail store), a Soviet Union counterpart
  • Intershop, an East German counterpart
  • Tuzex, a Czechoslovak counterpart

Further reading

  • Zlot a lot of dollars. (Pewex stores in Poland), The Economist, May 1988

References

  • Atlantyda Ludowa, czyli jak zmarnowano najlepszą markę PRL-u
  • Ewa Cander-Karolewska, Painted advertisement for Pewex, 1 August 2007,