• Slovakia has been independent since 1 January 1993

• President Rudolf Schuster since 15 June 1999
  

• Parliamentary democracy

Legislative Branch

• Unicameral National Council of the Slovak Republic or Narodna Rada Slovenski Republiky (150 seats)
  

Leading Parties

• HZDS – Movement for a Democratic Slovakia with 43 representatives in National Council – 27%
• SDK – Slovak Democratic Coalition with 42 representatives in National Council – 26.3%
• SDL – Party of the Democratic Left with 23 representatives in National Council – 14.7 %
• SMK – Party of the Hungarian Coalition with with 15 representatives in National Council – 26.3%
• SNS – Slovak National Party with 14 representatives in National Council – 9.1%
• SOP – Party of Civil Understanding with 13 representatives in National Council – 8%

Macroeconomic indicators

GDP

• GDP – has been stable in the past three years with a slight inclination to growth
• In the individual quarters 2000, GDP growth was characterized by an increase in dynamics: while Q1 saw a year-on-year increase of 1.5% at constant prices, the rate of GDP growth accelerated to 2.9% in Q4.

Inflation

• The annual inflation rate has been on an upward trend in recent years and end-year inflation was 8.4% in 2000
• Price development was was mainly effected by:
  - large increase in utility tariffs
  - depreciation of the currency
  - strong international oil prices
• Effected prices - mainly prices of industrial producers and agricultural products, to a lesser extend construction material.
• Slowdown in the dynamics of increase was recorded in construction work prices.

Develoment of producer prices

Unemployment

• The labor market has been characterized by a fall in demand for labor for three consecutive years. This lead to a fall in employment.
• In 2000, the average number of employees in the Slovak economy was 1,977 thousand.

External Debt

At 31 December 2000, the total gross external debt of the Slovak Republic amounted to US.804 billion

FDI

• In 2000 FDI inflows has grown rapidly reaching US<.1 billion, according to Ministry of Finance.
• Equity capital invested in Slovakia had reached a volume of US$ 2.9 billion by 30 September 2000.
• Slovakia’s attractiveness to foreign investors is likely to continue in 2001 due to several large privatisations in the financial and utilities sector being started

Economic development

In the last four years of economic development we can see:

• GDP shows a positive growth last year
• Inflation rate shows upward trend last couple of years
• Unemployment rate is slowly decreasing, but still has a very high number
• Depreciation of the Slovak crown
• FDI inflows have grown rapidly.