New major investments have been avoiding Slovakia in the past few years, despite the fact that large foreign companies operating in the country are being heavily subsidised by the state in exchange for expanding their plants and/or retaining employment levels at their existing sites, brings the Sme daily.
Over the past five years Slovakia hasn't managed to attract any large industrial investment worth more than €100 million. The last such investments were recorded before the recession and included the Samsung plants near Trnava and Galanta and the Kia plant near Žilina. Only smaller investments of tens of millions of euro have come to Slovakia since then. New investors have recently preferred neighbouring countries as they are discouraged by the ineffective education system, poor infrastructure and increasing labour expenditures in Slovakia. “The competition from the Czech Republic, Hungary and even Romania is considerably fiercer these days. Everyone is trying to provide assistance, tax relief and other benefits,” said KPMG director Ľuboš Vančo.
