Eastern Slovakia forces itself on to the map for foreign investors

When Whirlpool of the US launched in 1992 its joint venture in Poprad, under the Tatra mountains, it was one of the first foreign investors in eastern Slovakia. The washing machine plant was so remote that when it snowed the mostly imported components could not get through and production had to be halted, recalls Errico Biondi, its director. For most of the 1990s Whirlpool remained a lonely foreign outpost among the declining smokestack industries that dominate this depressed region on the Ukrainian border. East Slovakia, lacking motorways westwards towards the European Union, was completely off the map for foreign investors. But Slovakia, even its far east, is now firmly on the map as the country prepares to join the EU next May. Whirlpool's blue-and-white plant, whose workers produce 2,179 washing machines each year, compared with 780 in 1994, is no longer isolated. It has attracted a clutch of suppliers employing 1,000 workers to add to the 1,000 it employs itself. In Kosice, the regional capital of 240,000 inhabitants, US Steel took over the virtually insolvent VSZ steel mill in 2000, maintaining 15,500 jobs and saving around five times that at other companies that rely on the plant. US Steel has pledged to spend $700m (€625m, £440m) over 10 years and has already invested $155m of that, with another $100m planned this year. The success of Whirlpool and US Steel has attracted other foreign investors such as Molex, Siemens, Embraco and Matsushita. US Steel has also funded an Economic Development Centre that has helped attract five smaller companies that plan to create 1,000 jobs.