On Monday, Prime Minister Robert Fico and Agriculture Minister Ľubomír Jahnátek signed a memorandum of understanding with British company Midia Agro. The British firm plan to invest €98 million and create 320 new jobs in an industrial park near the village of Čab, west Slovakia. The company has applied for investment aid. "At a Government session on Wednesday we're ready to approve investment aid worth €18.5 million, of which €16.5 million will be support for tangible assets and €2 million will be in tax relief," said the Prime Minister Robert Fico.
Midia Agro wants to produce milk-based children's products intended for the Asian market. The company plans to process 25 percent of Slovakia's milk output. According to Norman Patrick Turner, the company has begun discussions in China, where it should supply five orders. The very part of the decision to build a plant close to Nitra stems from the veterinarian history of milk produced in Slovakia: "You've not been affected by diseases, you have got a clean veterinarian record and the government signing the recent milk and meat trade accord with China proves that. The Chinese went to great lengths to check the status of milk and the dairy herd in Slovakia and it has a completely clean bill of health. We have to have the security of clean, disease free, high quality milk."
Production in Slovakia is to be launched in the first quarter of 2018.
According to Agriculture Minister Ľubomír Jahnátek the competition provided by the new investor for established dairies in Slovakia will intensify pressure for increases in the prices paid to dairy farmers. The Slovak Association of Primary Milk Producers executive director Margita Stefanikova told the TASR press agency that the plans of British company Midia Agro may save Slovak primary milk producers and the stock of dairy cows in the country. Norman Patrick Turner: "What we will do is to make sure that the daily farmers receive a price for their milk which is at least the European average price for milk. At the moment, they're not receiving that. So the farmers will have stability."
The Association chairman Alexander Pastorek welcomes the idea: "Currently, the European average price for milk is 30.33 cents. In Slovakia it is 27.43 cents which is approximately 3 cents fewer." According to Alexander Pastorek, Slovak farmers currently breed 135,000 dairy cows, while the figure was 70,000 higher five years ago. The decline was caused by the milk crisis of 2009. Nevertheless, the chairman of the Slovak Association of Primary Milk Producers believes that farmers will react to the presence of a new milk-processing company by increasing again the stock of dairy cows.
