Annual output growth in Eastern European countries by sector 1967-1969
In the 1950s and 1960s, industrialization swept across Europe and brought record levels of prosperity to the continent. In Eastern Europe, industrial output grew annually by an average of almost ten percent these years. In comparison, agriculture (the sector from which much of the capital and employment was diverted) grew at less than a third of the industrial sector's rate, while the output of construction and service sectors grew by an average of six percent each year. Agricultural output in Czechoslovakia even fell by an average of 0.4 percent each year.