Last year, Slovak auto manufacturers produced 575,776 cars, an increase of 4,705 cars compared with 2007.
The President of the Slovak Automotive Industry Association (ZAP), Jozef Uhrík, told a news conference on April 7 that sales turnover for Slovakia's automotive industry amounted to €19.71 billion last year, a drop of over 5 percent year-on-year. The automotive industry's share of Slovakia's total industrial output exceeded 32 percent. “Elements of the economic crisis are fully in effect and the crisis also hit the automotive industry in Slovakia as a whole,” Uhrík told the SITA newswire.
Uhrik stressed the importance of the development of sub-contractors for carmakers, which manufactured components worth Sk271.4 billion (€9.009 billion) last year. In 2007, this volume amounted to Sk280.2 billion (€9.301 billion). As a positive point, Uhrík mentioned that as three different groups of sub-contractors are operating in Slovakia and are interchanging with one another this could eliminate the impact of potential swings in production of one carmaker. In the near future, Slovakia's automotive industry should focus on transition from production organisations into production-development and research ones.
Three carmakers currently operate in Slovakia: Kia Motors, PSA Peugeot Citroen and Volkswagen Slovakia. According to ZAP, these employ approximately 14,000 people, while about 74,000 people worked in the entire automotive industry last year in Slovakia, which is almost 4 percent less than in 2007. SITA
Compiled by Zuzana Vilikovská from press reports
The Slovak Spectator cannot vouch for the accuracy of the information presented in its Flash News postings.
