Slovakia

Jantzen Development’s Central and Eastern European head office is situated in Bratislava. Slovakia is an important market for investments in farmland projects.

Slovakia and the Czech Republic separated in 1993, and since then Slovakia has joined both NATO and the EU in 2004 and the Euro area in 2009. The country covers some 49,000 sq km (18,900 sq miles) and has approximately 5.5 million citizens.

Since accession to the EU, the Slovakian economy has improved, and the unemployment rate has dropped from 18 % in 2003-2004 to 8 % in 2008 and 11 % in 2009 in the wake of the global financial crisis.

The area of agricultural land in Slovakia amounts to 2.4 million hectares (6 million acres) of which 1.35 million hectares (3.3 million acres) is arable land in general of a high quality. Cultivation of plants accounts for 48 % of the agricultural production. The most fertile land is to be found in south-western and eastern Slovakia.

The EU offers subsidies for investment projects in the Slovak farming sector, and this along with the comparatively low wages and generally low production costs renders Slovakia attractive for professional farmland projects.