Slovakia - Foreign trade

The Czech Republic, which used to account for as much as one-third of Slovakia's foreign trade, has dropped behind Germany as Slovakia's leading trade partner. Trade with the former Soviet Union has declined in importance and has increasingly been replaced by trade with the OECD, whose members buy over 90% of all Slovak exports.

In the Far East, China has emerged as the top trading partner, with imports and exports between the two nations increasing by almost 300% in 1995.

As of 2000, industrial manufacturing, including automobiles (16%), iron and steel (9.5%), and refined petroleum products (6.5%) topped the list for Slovakia's export commodities. Other exports include apparel (4.3%), motor vehicle parts and accessories (3.6%), paper (2.7%), furniture (2.4%), polymers (2.4%), textile yarn (1.7%), and rubber tires and tubes (1.2%).

In 2000 Slovakia's imports were distributed among the following categories: consumer goods, 12.3%; food, 4.5%; fuels, 17.6%; industrial supplies, 30.6%; machinery, 19.9%; transportation, 15.0%; and other imports, 0.1%.

Principal trading partners in 2000 (in millions of US dollars) were as follows:

COUNTRY	EXPORTS	IMPORTS	BALANCE
Germany	3,183	3,200	-17
Czech Republic	2,068	1,880	188
Italy	1,097	789	308
Austria	995	503	492
Poland	696	391	305
France	551	428	123
Netherlands	316	197	119
United Kingdom	225	309	-84
United States	170	265	-95
Russia	107	2,177	-2,070