Welcome to Slovakia’s largest city and capital – Bratislava. This is the heart and hub of Slovakia as most economic, cultural and political centres are based right here. The city itself is somewhat unique, as it is the only city in the world to border two countries. With influences from both Hungary and Austria, Bratislava has become a boiling pot for successful Eastern European business. Bratislava’s proximity to Western Europe has done much to support its ever increasing success. Year on year, more and more businesses come to the city to make investments. With state of the art infrastructure, a skilled labour force and a prime location, it is little wonder why.
If you are considering moving to Slovakia, or Bratislava for that matter, you may be curious about the state of the economy as well as emerging markets, businesses and key investment areas. Bratislava is home to a huge presence of both automotive and telecoms industries. Volkswagen Slovakia established a plant in Bratislava in 1991 for assembly and stock. This has contributed enormously in recent decades to the city’s economy. However, more recently the high-tech and service oriented businesses have begun to boom in Bratislava. A great deal of highly reputable companies have started to establish their service and outsourcing centres in the city. These include companies such as AT&T, Lenovo, Dell, IBM, Accenture and SAP.
Currently in Bratislava as much as 69% of the population work in the services sectors, this contributes to around 61% to the GDP. This mainly compromises of IT, telecommunication, tourism and financial services industries. Tourism industries in Bratislava are still developing and income has actually doubled in recent years. Yet, the sector still remains underdeveloped in comparison to neighbouring countries. However, based on a highly skilled and talented labour force, there are a number of main industries that have potential for growth in the city. The current strong automotive industry presence still has room to expand and is the fastest growing sector in Slovakia. It increases alongside industries such as Electronics, Mechanical engineering, Chemical engineering and Information technology.
As a country, Slovakia have continued to focus on foreign investment for a number of years. The government has continued to provide a number of incentives to keep foreign investors eager to invest in the region. There were also a number of local incentives in place to drive the amount of foreign investments in the country. For example, the government of Slovakia granted a tax break of 5 years to foreign firms that invested as much as give million Euros in the country. These foreign-friendly incentives from the Slovakian government contributed enormously to making Bratislava the economic tiger that it is today. Huge amounts of foreign investors have been attracted to the region and have therefore contributed to the increase in the expatriate community.
A positive growth trend for the whole of Slovakia has been predicted by The Slovak Central Bank for the coming quarters. Bratislava is set to benefit enormously from the coming growth trends that are set to grow by 2.9 of GDP in 2015. This is mainly driven by the exports, which are done in the capital city. The population of Bratislava is around half a million, meaning there is a huge market for investors who are interested in the region. The first-rate infrastructure provides the ideal access to other regions in which to expand that market. Expatriates can rest assured that investors are going to have a continued interest in Bratislava for the coming future.
