Virtual Slovakia - your online source for Slovakia!

Home page About Slovakia Slovakia in Pictures Forum Contact us

Main menu:

Exploring Slovakia

Traveller

Investor / Business

Real estate

Culture & Arts

Sport & Recreation

Links / Contacts

Services:

Accommodation

Car rentals

Flight tickets

Partners:

Enjoy Bratislava

Slovakia - Little Big Country

Investor / Business

Slovakia has pursued a difficult transition from a centrally planned economy to a modern market economy. Major privatizations are nearly complete, the banking sector is almost completely in foreign hands. Solid domestic demand boosted economic growth to 4.1% in 2002. Strong export growth, in turn, pushed economic growth to a still-strong 4.2% in 2003 and 5.4% in 2004, despite a downturn in household consumption. Multiple reasons entailed a GDP growth of 6% in 2005, the 4th highest rate in the EU (after the three Baltic states). GDP growth was 8.2% in 2006 (the year-to-year growth amounted to unexpected 9.8% in the 3th quarter of 2006 and stayed high at 9.5% year-to-year change in the 4th quarter of 2006), and 8.0% in 2007. The 9.8% growth came as a surprise to local analysts (6 % was expected), given that the big foreign investor Kia was only going to launch its production in late 2006. In 2006, Slovakia reached the highest economic growth among the members of OECD.

Unemployment, peaking at 19.2% at the end of 2001, decreased again to some 8.9% (March 2007). In addition to the economic growth, migration of workers to other member-states of the European Union also contributed to this reduction. The unemployment rate still remains among the highest in the EU. Inflation dropped from an average annual rate of 12.0% in 2000 to just 3.3% in the election year 2002, but it rose again in 2003-2004 because of increases in taxes and regulated prices. It reached 3.7 % in 2005.

Slovakia plans to adopt the Euro currency on 1 January 2009 and has already entered the ERM II for this purpose (Slovak euro coins).

Slovakia is among the most attractive countries in the EU for foreign investors mainly because of its lower labour cost, low tax rates and well educated labour force. In recent years, Slovakia has been pursuing a policy of encouraging foreign investment. However, that has not shown any benefits so far in innovation capabilities within the country.

Source: Wikipedia.org