Economy of Slovakia

Introduction:

Slovakia is an industrialized nation with a growing service sector. The economy was made private after being accused of racketeering during the 1990s. Lately, their collective farms have been improved into agricultural cooperatives, with varying degrees of success. During the1990s, many companies were low on income and workers had to be paid by the companies' produce or livestock. In Slovakia, 5% of their GDP is contributed to their agricultural, nearly 40% to their industries and the remaining 55% for services accounts. The labor force exceeds 2,300,000 with services holding the highest weightage, followed by Industry, agriculture, transportation and construction, the least at 8%. Slovakia's unemployment rate has increased throughout the 1990s all the way till June 2000 at 20%. Back then in 1977, inflation was about 6 percent and prices have been increasing for many goods and services.

Education:

The economic growth of a country relies very heavily on the level of education provided for their people. When there are more educated citizens, there are more job options for their own country. Both internally and externally, by investing with other countries. Education in a country is one of the most important aspects of the growth of a company's economy as it increases production rate. Thus increasing a country's GDP.

In Slovakia, education is not difficult to come by. Adults in Slovakia have a literacy rate of nearly 99%. Education there is compulsory to all children up till the age of 15 so all children will be able to get good job opportunities. To ensure that all citizens undergo certain necessary stages of education, Public education is provided at no charge by the government, although funding for education is considered insufficient considering the number of citizens. Over the years, the government has been putting in more funds for not only university but to secondary and primary education. The citizens of Slovakia have a total expenditure of 4.3% of GDP for educational purposes. In 2006, the expenditure per student (% GDP per capita) was at its lowest at 3.2%. This decrease in expenditure would result in a decrease in working adults in the years to come, as the affected students would not have their basic education thus decreasing the rate of job opportunities and foreign investments.

Culture and Religion:

Slovakia is not very strong culturally however they are relatively united with regards to their religion. 89% of citizens are Roman Catholics, while 18% belongs to other kinds of Christianity. The remaining 13% are non-religious. When the Hungarians ruled the Slovakians for close to 900 years, most of their culture died out as it was made best to look as Hungarian as possible. The most well know items are the handicrafts produced in the villages, where culture and