Chief Executive Officer of the Slovak Investment and Trade Development Agency SARIO Juraj Kiesel met with His Excellency the Ambassador of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in Slovakia Michael Roberts who was accompanied by Peter Repka, the Head of the UK Trade and Investment Section of the UK Embassy in Bratislava. H. E. British Ambassador was interested in the current situation in the field of mutual trade exchange and investment projects between the Slovak Republic and UK. He positively evaluated the visit of the Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico in November of the last year in London who had expressed the interest in the intensification of the cooperation of the Slovak Republic and UK. The Director of the Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) Section Andrea Chovancova informed the guests that Great Britain is from the point of view of the investment influx very important partner of the Slovak Republic. “Based on the current data of the Statistical Office of the SR, the UK ranks 11.th – 12th place and from the point of view of the investment projects implemented through the SARIO, the United Kingdom ranks 7th,” said Andrea Chovancova. She added that the most important British investment projects in the Slovak Republic went into retail chains, distribution of gas, pharmaceuticals and chemical industries, machinery, electrotechnics, electronics and tourism. “Currently in our database we register six British investment projects”, added the Director of the FDI Section. “As for the foreign trade balance with UK, our export in 2008 was 2 355 220 thousands EUR and the import was 700 972 thousands EUR,” added Juraj Kiesel. He also mentioned that our most important export articles are TV sets, electronics, cars, boilers for central heating, telecommunications equipment, wires and cables, vehicles parts, furniture, paper toiletries, iron and steel sheet metal, agricultural machines and mowers, tires, paper, automatic regulation equipment, distributing panels, media for sound recording, metal furniture parts, electric engines and generators, chocolate and foodstuffs involving cocoa. Juraj Kiesel also introduced current SARIO project "Investment & Cooperation Forum Slovakia 2010" (ICF Slovakia 2010). This event aims to help in finding the tools for elimination of the negative impacts of the crisis while connecting the representatives of the municipal and regional administration with the potential investors and their investment intents in Slovakia (https://www.sario.sk/?news&novinka=980). Consequently he asked Peter Repka, the Head of the UK Trade and Investment Section of the Embassy to cooperate in providing the participation of the investors from the United Kingdom at this event. “This is a very good idea,” H. E. Michael Roberts commented the project of the ICF Slovakia 2010 and added that it might be useful to also prepare and investment forum in the UK. SARIO CEO proposed to organize an event with the investment and trade relating character that would take place in London in the cooperation with our Embassy in the UK as well as the UK Embassy in Bratislava.
