(source: Jaguar Land Rover Discovery)
More than 1.1 million vehicles rolled off the carmakers’ production lines in Slovakia in 2019, beating the country’s record by about 7,000 vehicles.
In the past few years, Slovakia has remained at the top of the world ranking in the number of cars produced per 1,000 inhabitants. In 2019, it kept its primacy by 202 vehicles. Next year, the Slovak Automotive Industry Association (ZAP) estimates 1.15 million vehicles will be produced in Slovakia.
Despite these positives, ZAP is calling on the Slovak government to take measures to ensure the country’s automotive industry remains competitive.
“Absence of quality social dialogue when setting the minimum wage, direct as well as indirect costs of employers or adoption of other [costs-increasing] measures without compensation – all of this endangers the future of the automotive industry,” said ZAP president Alexander Matušek when introducing the preliminary results of the automotive sector for 2019 and plans for 2020 on January 10.
ZAP officials see basic obstacles to making further headway in the lack of qualified labour, rapid and unpredictable growth in salary costs, the non-existence of a system for transferring scientific knowledge into practice and a low level of development of alternative propulsion and the preparation of new forms of mobility.
Not all revealed the numbers
The automotive industry made up 49.5 percent of Slovakia’s total industrial production, while the export share was 46.6 percent last year. The automotive industry directly employs over 177,000 people, while generating 275,000 jobs both directly and indirectly, according to ZAP’s estimate.
Out of four carmakers active in Slovakia, only two revealed their car production of the previous year. Both exceeded their so-far records.
