Previously a predominantly agricultural region, it has, nonetheless, attracted its fair share of foreign manufacturing investment from a wide range of sectors from paper and packaging - with Sweden’s Assi Domain employing over 2,500 - to automotive components with Britain’s Lucas and Germany’s Volkswagen / Siemens joint venture producing cable harnesses.

The region’s capital, Nitra, was founded in the 5th century as a trade hub between Poland and Hungary and today hosts a number of trade fairs on account of it having Slovakia’s largest trade fair venue.

Whist the local airport only handles freight and private traffic, the region is within a 150 km radius of three international airports - Bratislava, Vienna and Budapest. Having its own container terminal facilities rapid rail transport to Hungary, Austria and the Czech Republic and by 2002 there will be uninterrupted motorway access from the west.

Currently, over 15,000 students are enrolled within the region’s two universities which includes Konstanina Filozofa specialising in teacher training and languages. Research and development institutions abound with the three main commercial centres focusing on plastic materials, mining tools and the certification of vegetables and seeds.

The region plays host to Slovakia’s largest producer of fertilisers and antioxidants for the rubber industry, Duslo Sala, which exports almost 80% of production and employs in excess of 3,000. In addition to automotive components, the regions is also strong within the electrical and electronics sectors with companies like Osram engaging 600 people to produce lighting and Diotec manufacturing electronic components.

General information

Slovakia boasts eight well developed regions and in terms of population, they are finely balanced, as the table below illustrates

Regions of Slovakia and Population - Total Population of Country - 5.4 million

Unlike the neighbouring countries with which Slovakia competes for foreign direct investment, manufacturing and the established infrastructure to underpin the activities, is not concentrated in a few territories. Rather, Slovakia has a well balanced manufacturing base with an even distribution of production activity across the eight regions as outlined below.

Regions of Slovakia - Workforce engaged in Manufacturing