Mezei István: Urban development in Slovakia (Pécs-Somorja, 2010)
5. Regional organization in Slovakia
Regional organization in Slovakia an example for what the Mečiar way of developing Slovakia’s own layer of owners actually was. The company was sold to Vladimir Poor, the Slovak owner in Trnava, for one-sixth of its actual value. The German INASchaeffler-group is one of the largest investors in the machine industry of the region. In Skalica, they employ almost 3,000 people in their bearing production factory. Grafobal, a company of the printing industry, also operates in Skalica. Its activity is so important that, besides domestic companies, it has already set up printing works in the Czech Republic, Lithuania and Bulgaria. The third important company of Skalica is Protherm Production, the boiler works of the German Vaillant Group. The sugar mill in Dunajská Streda, which was fairly famous in the food industry, operated till 2007 in French ownership. Today the food industry is only represented by Tauris Danubia, a meat-processing plant. The Trenčín region can be found in a comparatively rich and highlydeveloped section of Slovakia, in a varied, rather hilly area, not far from the Czech border. After Bratislava, this is where the most people are employed in the industry, especially in the llava and Trenčín regions. The traffic conditions of the region are extremely favourable for investors. The heavy-armament producing plants of the former Czechoslovakia used to be based in this region, because it was not bordered by any of the member countries of NATO, unlike the Czech areas, where, consequently, only light weapons were produced. As a matter of course, after 1989, this area was in crisis and the unemployment rate soared. Mečiar was successful in becoming a popular politician for such a long time because he supported the revival of the defence industry. He created this region in 1996 because of the crowds voting for him, and he has also moved there and lives in Trenčianske Teplice, the famous spa. The revival of the industry in the region was due to the auto manufacturing industry. Since, from the point of view of transportation, this region is accessible by the roads connecting the auto manufacturing companies, it is worthwhile launching factories there to supply the plants in Bratislava, Trnava and Žilina. The most important of such plants is Continental Matador, the tyre factory in Puchov, which has been in German ownership since 1998. In commemoration of the ancestor of the factory, its 100th anniversary was celebrated in 2005. The company has subsidiaries in the Czech Republic, Russia, Kazakhstan and Ethiopia. A joint venture with a Korean company produces tyres for Kia auto manufacturing company, a plant in Vráble for Volkswagen in Bratislava and Suzuki in Esztergom. In Dolné Vestenice hockey pucks are produced 128
