Over the period January-July 1998, the cumulative figure of direct foreign investments in Slovakia was minus 2.004 billion Sk ($55.7 million), while over the first six months it was plus 8.395 billion Sk ($233 million). These figures indicate that in a single month, 10.4 billion Sk ($289 million) in direct investments left Slovakia. These figures were released in a National Bank of Slovakia (NBS) report on the development of the balance of payments for seven months of 1998.
Capital investment and reinvested profit have maintained this year's growth rate, though the monthly increase was a mere 718.3 million Sk to 8.315 billion Sk, while the item "other capital investments" recorded an absolute fall. While their 1H increase totaled 798 million Sk, in late July direct capital disinvestment represented 10.32 billion Sk.
NBS spokesman Ján Onda explained that direct investment figures are developing continuously. According to him, Slovakia maintained this year's growth in the inflow of direct investments covering capital investments and reinvested profit in July, but credit lines between foreign mother companies and their subsidiaries in Slovakia have changed. Analysts say a possible explanation could be that in July some foreign corporation could have withdrawn their loans from their Slovak subsidiaries, which subsequently resulted in considerable monthly disinvestment in the NBS statistics.
