Slovakia’s industrial production has achieved the lowest level since the country became independent in 1993.
It fell 42 percent year-on-year in April 2020, impacted mostly by a sharp decrease in the manufacture of transport equipment by 78.9 percent y-o-y, according to the data presented by the Statistics Office.
Back in March 2020, the decrease only amounted to 19.6 percent annually. It also exceeded the maximum annual drop reported during the 2009 economic crisis, when industrial production fell 27.5 percent y-o-y, according to Ľubomír Koršňák, analyst with UniCredit Bank Czech Republic and Slovakia.
“Production was suspended in all four Slovak carmakers most of the month, and even the first efforts to restore production in the Žilina-based Kia Motors Slovakia were interrupted by problems in the supply chain,” Koršňák wrote in a memo.
As a result, car production achieved only one-fifth (21.2 percent) of last year’s volume.
