Mezei István: Urban development in Slovakia (Pécs-Somorja, 2010)
5. Regional organization in Slovakia
Regional organization in Slovakia try can be found between Vienna and Budapest, in Komárno. In Nitra there is a university of agriculture and a university of arts. Selye János University, the only university with Hungarian as the language of education, is also based in Komárno. In the years of the cold war following World War II, Western European countries refused to sell certain high-technology products to the countries of the Warsaw Pact. Consequently, the missing products, such as chemicals, were produced in Slovakia in much larger quantities than would have been necessary. After the collapse of the Soviet Empire, not only the manufacture of arms, but also the chemical industry came to a crisis, and the foreign investors that could make it prosperous again only arrived in Slovakia in the late 1990s. In 1958 Duslo chemical works, which produced rubber and artificial fertilizers, was built in Šaľa. At present it produces first of all insecticides. Duslo was first bought from its employees by the Czech Agrofert, then in 2004 by Andrej Babiš, the richest person in Slovakia. In Zlaté Moravce there was first a large company that produced household gadgets, then, after it had gone bankrupt, a German firm (Volkswagen Elektrické Systémy) took it over, and since then cables have been produced for cars. To reduce unemployment, a business park has been established, where investors can employ people under favourable conditions. In the Tlmače machine factory, industrial boilers are produced; this is the largest machine industrial plant of the region. The three largest firms of the construction industry (Invest In - Šaľa, Cesty Nitra - Nitra, ViOn - Zlaté Moravce) can also be found in this region. Smurfit Kappa, a wrapping-paper production company, operates in Štúrovo, and Swiss Rieker, the largest boot and shoe factory of the country, can be found in Komárno. The auto factories attracted the electric bulb factory of the German company Osram to Nové Zámky. The former machine factory in Vráble, which was built in 1966, made car spare parts, wheel-disks and brakes for Škoda. At present it is a subsidiary of Matador in Puchov and produces press-forged and welded spare parts. Heineken bought the former Golden Pheasant brewery in Hurbanovo in 1995 and has been running it ever since. The Žilina region is the most mountainous administrative region of the country. It has got several national parks and other nature reserves. Due to the high mountains there are a lot of wooded areas and few agricultural, arable fields. The districts Ružomberok, Dolný Kubľn, Martin and Žilina belong to the most highly developed parts of the region. 130
