Archive of articles - March 2001, page 2

This Week

2000 GDP growth fuels optimism for 2001

Despite positive reactions from analysts to the March 15 release of figures showing a 2.2% growth in Slovak gross domestic product (GDP) in 2000, Finance Ministry officials said they had been slightly disappointed by a failure to meet the 2.5% target they had originally set for the macroeconomic indicator in a late 1999 forecast.Speaking at a press conference to announce the figures, Finance Minister Brigita Schmögnerová said: "We expected 2.5%. The result was slightly lower, but what was very positive was that in the last quarter of 2000, GDP growth showed a positive trend." She also noted that domestic demand had risen more quickly than expected in the fourth quarter of 2000, a development which her ministry said will also be the driving force for this year's economic growth.Mária Kačurová, the head of the financial policy department at the Finance Ministry, said that a faster economic revival had been expected. "We believe that the figure is positive, but we thought that corporate sector restructuring [including the implementation of important laws such as a new Bankruptcy Law, and attracting foreign investment - ed. note] would influence GDP growth sooner than it did," she said.

Bekaert invests grudgingly in Slovakia

Few foreign investors would stay in Slovakia after the complicated and time-consuming search for suitable land for an investment that Belgium autoparts producer Bekaert has just been through.But the world's leading manufacturer of steel car cords, which had led an intensive year-long search across Slovakia, has finally found a place to set up its one billion crown ($20 million) plant - Sládkovičovo in western Slovakia.However, the company's representatives have made it absolutely clear that the reason for their presence in Slovakia is a customer base within the country and the Czech Republic, not what incentives or investment sweeteners the government could have offered.

Minister fears new Roma flight

Interior Minister Ladislav Pittner angered Slovak Roma leaders when he said that were a new wave of Romany asylum-seekers to swamp western countries, it might result in every European Union country requiring visas of travelling Slovaks.Pittner made the statements March 17 after returning from Brussels, where he had attended a session of the Council of Justice and Social Affairs Ministers of EU countries. He reported that Slovakia had been added by the EU to a list of 'safe countries', meaning that EU member states would not require visas of Slovaks. But another Roma exodus, he warned, could provoke the EU to issue a blanket visa for Slovaks visiting any member nation.

Around Slovakia

Angry hockey president sacks 14 playersHuman leg left on river bank in protest

Letters to the editor

Stop generalising about Americans

Government struggling to sell off lucrative Hotel Forum

One of the most recognisable landmarks in Bratislava, and arguably one of the most lucrative pieces of real estate in the country, the state-owned Hotel Forum is proving a tough sell. Forum owners anxious for money from the sale have been frustrated by their inability to dispose of the hotel in its current form.The problem is that the government is the owner, and the company through which it controls Forum was set up by the former government of Vladimír Meeiar as a limited liability company - the only state company formed in such a way - which has made its sale a technical and political obstacle course."We have to privatise the Hotel Forum," said Ivan Mikloš, Deputy Prime Minister for the Economy. "However, it is not possible to sell it in a standard way because it's a limited liability company, in which the majority owner is the government office, and the contracts with other entities were written in such a way that it is impossible to cancel them. The whole issue is absurd."

Gay leaders take case to MPs

Leaders of Slovakia's homosexual community told a parliamentary committee March 13 that Slovak gays and lesbians needed legislation to protect their human rights. The meeting was the first official dialogue ever between Slovak members of parliament (MPs) and gay rights leaders.The Inakosť (difference) Initiative, a coalition of Slovak gay rights organisations, appeared in front of the 10-member Parliamentary Committee on Human Rights and Nationality, calling for legislation protecting gays and lesbians in the workplace and legislation establishing registered partnerships for homosexual partners."[Slovakia's] homosexual minority is forced to live with fear and guilt for their emotional and sexual orientation... resulting in suicidal tendencies, neurosis, and suppressed yearning for human relationships," said Inakosť spokesman Ivan Požgai.

Community Corner

French-language Film FestivalBahá'í Community's New Year CelebrationAustrian Embassy reading and exhibitionsFrench Institute exhibitionsGoethe Institute video show and exhibitionsSwedish exhibition for the disabledSpanish exhibition in Danubiana

OTP makes late bid for neglected IRB bank

The privatisation saga of state bank Investičná a rozvojová banka (IRB), which has failed to attract any concrete interest since it went on offer in summer last year, saw an unexpected twist March 13 as it was announced that the largest Hungarian bank, OTP, was bidding for the stake.According to the Finance Ministry, OTP is the only investor interested in acquiring the 69.9% stake offered by the Finance Ministry and the National Property Fund privatisation agency, and will carry out due diligence on the finance house in the second half of March."The [potential] Hungarian investor is then expected to come up with an offer, and the Finance Ministry will make the decision," said Jozef Mach, spokesman for the Finance Ministry. According to Hungarian press, OTP will offer between three and seven billion forints ($10 million and $23.4 million) for the IRB stake. OTP officials were unavailable for comment on their potential acquisition of the Slovak institution.

Slovak puppeteers fighting for recognition and respect

When Marta Žuchová goes to work she is faced with scores of prattling children.Sometimes the very thought can be exhausting, but the 59 year-old says that one reason she chose her profession was because she wanted to be around kids.Žuchová is not a principle or a paediatrician. She is a puppeteer. She makes a living by touching life into figures of cloth, wood, and plastic, by filling their mouths with lines from fairy-tales and comebacks to heckling crowds. It is a craft with a deep tradition in Slovakia, and one that takes more years to learn than most of her audience have been alive.

Prosecution of Mečiar-era suspects ends with whimper

Prime Minister Mikuláš Dzurinda's entourage came to the opening of the Slovak Month of Culture in New York at the beginning of February hoping to show off Slovakia in one of the world's biggest and most influential cities. Domestic and international media should have been clamouring for words from the PM on what his country had to offer the world.Instead, Dzurinda found himself upstaged, the cameras and microphones straining to catch the words of a fugitive. Rudolf Žiak, charged with political sabotage while working for the Slovak Intelligence Service (SIS), was happily chatting away to the eager media masses at the same gatherings attended by the Slovak contingent.The shadow Foreign Minister in the opposition 'shadow cabinet' of the Movement for a Democratic Slovakia (HZDS), he had been sent to the US three months earlier on what his party said was a "business trip", and was charged while abroad.

Mortgage market given boost

A Finance Ministry proposal which would allow mortgagees larger credits on houses has been welcomed cautiously by analysts and banks, who stress what they say is the "immaturity" of the current market.As part of proposed legislation on banking supervision, the Finance Ministry confirmed March 11 that the maximum volume of mortgage loans that could be taken would be raised from the present level of 60% to 70% of the desired property.While the move would give people larger credits, analysts have said that existing restrictions will still severely limit the number of people available to take mortgages.

This Week

Ethical journalism: Brave hearts on road to Tipperary

The Centre for Independent Journalism (CIJ) in Bratislava has launched a series of courses for news people on investigative journalism and media ethics. That the course is bring held at all shows that Slovak journalism faces heavy pressures to ignore ethics and not to investigate, and that its rank-and-file members care enough about the issue to travel long distances to find out how to resist these influences.The most recent session was held on March 14, and was attended by 15 to 20 journalists from around the country, aged between 26 and 50 years. They represented such media as the national public channel STV, a Košice daily paper, a radio show for children. They travelled from as far as Humenne in the east, a good nine-hour train and bus ride from the capital.There's certainly plenty to investigate in this country, as the methods of the Dzurinda government and the state bureaucrats who run the country have not changed as dramatically from what occurred under the 1994-1998 Mečiar government as we had been promised. Privatisation, the management of state companies, the courts and the health care network are run by people who are as loath to be examined as were their predecessors.

Skinheads and anti-fascists butt heads

Shouting skinheads and anti-fascist protesters disrupted traffic for half an hour on Mýtna ulica in downtown Bratislava on March 14, the 62nd anniversary of the first Slovak state.Demonstrators on a 'March for Tolerance' were greeted by 75 unruly skinheads as they left námestie Slobody (Freedom Square) en route to the Presidential Palace and the Old Town. The 200 demonstrators stopped walking, put down their signs and yelled anti-fascist slogans at the skinheads.A small police unit on the scene prevented a physical confrontation between the groups while reinforcements arrived. Police in riot gear piled out of police vehicles and drove back the skinheads with German Shepherds and batons. A young skinhead who ran into the street and gave a Nazi fascist salute was taken into custody.

Central bank pours cold water on hopes for interest rate cut

The National Bank of Slovakia (NBS) dampened a sudden rush of optimism among analysts March 13 after the Slovak Statistical Office reported headline CPI (Consumer Price Index) inflation of 6.7% year-on-year, 0.3% under market expectations.Despite immediate calls from analysts for the central bank to lower interest rates on the inter-bank market, NBS officials remained cautious in drawing any connection between the latest inflation figures and any potential drop in key interest rates."Inflation developed very positively in February due to lower prices of food, especially fruits and vegetables, more so than were expected. But it is going to jump in the near future, and the room for cutting interest rates is going to be limited this year, said Peter Seveovie, NBS Monetary Policy Director. The NBS has set its 2001 year-end target for headline inflation at between 6.7% and 8.2%.

Review: Uncovering What Women Want

Sigmund Freud uncovered many secrets of the human psyche, but he went to the grave asking himself one simple question: What do women want?So says a psychologist in What Women Want, a witty, if formulaic, romantic comedy about a womaniser whose life is changed when he acquires the ability to read the minds of women. Smart and funny, the film avoids the fragrant clichés of the American romantic comedy until its final act.Act one: Ad-exec Nick Marshall (Mel Gibson) has a twofold approach to women: he charms them into his bed or charms them into getting his coffee, doing his laundry and making his phone calls.But times are changing, at least at work, where Marshall specialises in obsolescent bikini ads for alcohol, cigarette and car companies. "Women born in the mid-1980s now control advertising dollars," says his boss, who breaks the news that Marshall has been passed over for a promotion in favour of hired gun Darcy Maguire (Helen Hunt) who is to rope in contracts for female products.

Debt forcing cities to sell municipal land

Unmanageable debt is forcing Slovakia's three largest cities to begin selling off real estate, something they have been reluctant to do since private ownership first became possible after the 1989 anti-Communist revolutionBanská Bystrica owes 1.3 billion crowns ($27.67 million), Košice 2.2 billion crowns ($46.81 million), and Bratislava a whopping 4.5 billion crowns ($95.74 million). Struggling to balance their budgets and ringed in by creditors, the leaders of all three cities have said they intend to auction city property to meet their obligations.It's not a decision that has come easily, though. Central Slovakia's Banská Bystrica, which has been taken to bankruptcy court by Slovak-French bank Prvá komunálna banka (PKB), and has had most of its accounts frozen, has been forced to sell off six properties so far, and to draw up a list of 22 sites which it could use to meet PKB's 650,000 crowns in unpaid loans (waiting in the wings are Banka Slovakia with 29 million crowns and Dopravna banka with 8.5 million crowns in receivables). The six sites sold so far (including a run-down movie theatre) have brought in a puny 11 million crowns.