Establishment of the new automotive production plant with participation of a foreign investor in the Slovak Republic

I have decided the topic of my Master Thesis because of current movement of the production capacity from Western to Eastern Europe and especially from Asian countries to the mid-Europe developing states. Eastern Europe is interesting for the foreign investor mostly due to the low labour cost, skilled work force and additionally for the Asian investors' ccess to the EU market, low logistic cost and no custom duty. Slovakia is also interesting because of introduction of Euro currency in 2009. Decision of the location mostly occurs after "Race to bottom" between central European countries such as Slovakia, Czech, Poland or Hungary. Government in Slovakia usually promises a lot of incentives to foreign investors unfortunately not all are realistic to fulfil and this can cause disappointment and problems to the future successful cooperation with overseas investors. In my thesis I focus on the problems related to establishing of the new automotive production plant or operation from the side of a foreign investor before and mainly after decision of the factory location. During my 8-year practise, I have been facing several significant problems especially when the foreign investor began to realize its investment in Slovakia. I have structured my thesis into separate units with logical continuity of processes which each foreign investor has to go through before and during the implementation of its investment. Slovak legislation together with local authority decision delaying creates a very complicated situation mostly for the Asian investors without appropriate experiences. Many consulting companies are making profitable business regarding this uncertainty in the Slovak legislation. The investor can lose a lot of money and also suffer terrible time delay on starting of the production as a consequence of wrong decision on consulting company. My thesis will show the problems and solutions on above mentioned situations with examples from my experience. At the end, my recommendations should help foreign investors better understand Slovakia's specificities related to new automotive production plant establishment, save time and money as well as to avoid wrong decisions before starting of the volume mass production.8