While in 1993, the Czech Republic produced more than 220,000 passenger cars, Slovakia only made a thousand. Currently, the annual production in both countries exceeds a million cars per year. Slovakia’s automotive plants will soon be joined by a fifth production site.
Production in previous years was affected by the covid pandemic, while this year, the industry faces a lack of parts and disrupted supply chains.
A combination of negative factors for the automotive industry
According to the President of the Czech Automobile Industry Association, Martin Jahn, the industry has been dealing with many negative factors for the third year. Demand for new cars remains high, but the situation in production remains complex. It is affected by the persistent shortage of car chips, the lockdown in China and the interruption of supply lines due to the war in Ukraine.
While in 1993, only Volkswagen produced a thousand cars in Slovakia, last year, more than one million vehicles came off the production lines of Slovak factories. These include Jaguar Land Rover, Kia, Stellantis and Volkswagen. In 2019, a record number of more than 1.1 million vehicles were produced in the country.
Growing prominence
The importance of the automotive industry for Slovakia’s economy will increase even more in the future. This July, the Swedish car manufacturer Volvo Cars announced plans to build a plant for the production of electric cars in the east of Slovakia.
The automotive industry accounted for 47.7 per cent of the sales of the entire Slovak industry and almost 43 per cent of the country’s total exports. In Slovakia, with a population of five million, companies from the automotive industry employed a total of 164,000 workers. The automotive industry is thus integral to the economic development of the country.
