SLOVAKIA, by the year 2070, may have 4.5 million to 4.8 million inhabitants, down from the current 5.38 million, the country's Statistics Office predicted.
In recent years, fewer children have been born and the situation is not expected to improve in the coming decades.
The Slovak daily Pravda wrote on December 4 that, according to experts, immigrants could not improve the population drop considerably because they usually do not consider Slovakia their final destination.