After the foundation of the first Czechoslovak Republic, its citizens were close to the living standard of Austrians and Germans. But presently Slovakia continues to significantly lag behind them when its GDP per capita has as much as halved over the century. The good news is that since 1989 Slovakia has been catching up economically with the Czech Republic. These are the results of a study, which the Centre for Economic and Market Analyses (CETA) and the company TopForex elaborated on the occasion of the centenary of the first Czechoslovak Republic (ČSR).
In 1920, ČSR reached GDP per capita at 80 percent of this indicator in Austria and 70 percent of Germany. Right now Slovakia is achieving only 40 percent, and the Czech Republic 46 percent of that indicator in Austria. In the case of Germany it is 43 and 48 percent, respectively.
“We converged with richer neighbours between the world wars and then again after 1989,” said Ivor Lehoťan, CEO of TopForex as cited in the press release. “But after the split of the republic in 1989, the Czech and Slovak Republics took different paths due to different maturity and infrastructure as well as the adoption of the European single currency in Slovakia. While the Czech Republic had 56 percent higher GDP per capita than Slovakia in 1993, this difference was 38 percent in 2004 and only 14 percent in 2017.”
In terms of life expectancy and the index of its quality, the difference is lower, while these indicators have worsened in both countries. In the case of Slovakia it was 13.07 percent in quality of life compared with Austrians while in the case of the Czech Republic it was 4.6 percent. Life expectancy in Slovakia is four years shorter than in Austria and Germany while in the Czech Republic it is only two years.
