The Slovak Investment and Trade Development Agency (SARIO) finalised deals for 18 projects in 2012, with another 14 drafted projects awaiting assessment by the Economy Ministry and the government, the TASR newswire reported on January 4.
“The concluded projects have an overall volume of €466 million and have the potential to create more than 3,200 new jobs,” said spokesperson for SARIO, Ľubomíra Gabrielová, as quoted by TASR.
The 14 other projects could facilitate the creation of 5,000 new jobs and bring investments of €800 million.
“The overall potential of all these 32 projects represents investments at a volume of €1.2 billion and the opportunity to create more than 8,000 new jobs,” Gabrielová added.
The aforementioned projects are mainly aimed at the so-far disadvantaged regions of Trnava, Košice, Banská Bystrica and Žilina. The largest shares of investment aid are slated to go into the automotive industry, metallurgy and electrical engineering.
Among the most important investors are: Austrian light systems maker ZKW Slovakia, which is expected to create 500 new jobs; German firm Continental Automotive Systems Slovakia, which is set to create 500 jobs in Zvolen; and Italian automotive spare parts producer Magneti Marelli, which should provide more than 600 job vacancies in Eastern Slovakia.
Moreover, SARIO has been recently working on 76 investment projects with the potential of creating 16,000-20,000 jobs in Slovakia, TASR wrote.
On the other hand, three companies operating in steel, rubber and the electro-technical industry, which were to create about 3,000 new jobs, have already announced they will not establish their businesses in Slovakia, mostly because of the crisis and inadequate state aid, the Hospodárske Noviny daily wrote on January 7.
“Because of the events in the eurozone they asked for unrealistically high subsidies which we could not provide them with,” head of SARIO Robert Šimončič told Hospodárske Noviny.
He did not specify the names of the companies, but the daily reported that the lost investments pertained to German steel manufacturer ThyssenKrupp, an Indian investor active in the rubber-making industry and a French firm operating in the electro-technical industry. The companies allegedly planned to invest about €250 million in Slovakia.
Source: TASR, Hospodárske noviny
Compiled by Radka Minarechová from press reports
The Slovak Spectator cannot vouch for the accuracy of the information presented in its Flash News postings.
