Car plants in Slovakia produced 571,071 vehicles last year, almost double the 295,390 manufactured the year before. The result makes Slovakia the world’s leading producer of cars per capita, at 105.7 cars per thousand inhabitants, ahead of the Czech Republic and Slovenia.
For the first time, the combined production of the Žilina-based Kia Motors and the Trnava-based PSA Peugeot Citroen plants surpassed that of Volkswagen in Bratislava (250,000 annually), which has been active in Slovakia since 1991. The total number of cars produced in Slovakia should hit 640,000 this year as PSA and KIA ramp up to their full annual capacity of 300,000 units each. In 2009 the total is expected to reach 800,000 as PSA launches production of a new model to be made only on Slovakia.
Last year, vehicles comprised 40 percent of Slovakia’s total exports, with all three plants ranked among the top ten Slovak exporters. Slovakia’s trade deficit for 2007 (Ř660 million) stood at one of its best levels since Slovak independence in 1993.
