(FORTUNE Magazine) – What country was home to 1993's fastest-growing emerging stock market? If you guessed China, think again. The clear winner is Poland. From December 31, 1992, through December 23, 1993, the Warsaw trading index, or WIG, climbed incredibly from 1,000 to 12,106, in dollar terms, according to PlanEcon. The consulting firm compared the Polish results with 22 other embryonic markets tracked by the World Bank's International Finance Corp. Among bigger and more established stock markets, Brazil's and Turkey's led the way by FORTUNE's calculation. (For more on their performance, see Investing.) Poland's three-year-old stock market, located in the former headquarters of the Communist Party in Warsaw, captured the lead largely because the country enjoyed strong economic growth; GDP rose 4% over the year. The exchange also benefited from the fact that investment-minded Poles have few places to put their money. Only 22 publicly traded stocks are available, and locals were quick to follow foreign investors, including hedge funds and individuals. These investments are vulnerable to downturn, of course. Foreign money has already shifted toward Czech and Hungarian stocks, which have risen in recent months. But the slow pace of Polish privatization, says PlanEcon director Jan Vanous, means that share prices will stay strong because of pent-up investor demand. Right now the average stock portfolio in Poland has a value of just $34.

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