The Commercial Club

The Canadian Embassy in Bratislava approached the Slovak Investment and Trade Development Agency (SARIO) with the idea to co-organize a regular Commercial Club meeting for all representatives of economic sections of foreign embassies present in Slovakia.

The event was also supported by the Investment Support Association together with its member company KPMG.The Commercial Club meeting took place at the SARIO premises on Wednesday 19th of March and hosted representatives from 17 embassies of countries such are Canada, Taiwan, Switzerland, Poland, Spain, Iraq, USA, Norway, Italy, Turkey, Republic of Korea, Indonesia, The Netherlands, Hungary, Serbia, Brazil and Great Britain.Mr. Milan Harustiak, trade commissioner of the Canadian Embassy in Bratislava opened the event, which was followed by an opening speech of Mr. Robert Simoncic, CEO of SARIO.

Mr. Simoncic expressed his support to initiatives enhancing cooperation between the agency SARIO and foreign embassies in order to increase investment inflow and improve trade relations.Main program of the event was a  presentation Business Friendly Slovakia provided by Mr. Juraj Mihal, project manager from the Business Development Department of SARIO. Core of the presentation focused on current economic indicators of Slovakia as well as features of the Slovak investment environment, but also on aspects of the available investment incentives framework.

The next presentation about Success stories of cooperation between SARIO and foreign embassies was delivered by Mrs. Marcela Torokova, head of Business Development Department. Then Mrs. Timea Balazova Hlohinec introduced the Corporate Development Department and its services, which was followed by a presentation on the Investment Support Association (ISA) represented by Mrs. Lenka Demovicova, an association providing professional services for SARIO’s needs. Mr. Lubos Vanco, representative of the company KPMG talked about the competitive advantages of the Slovak Republic, especially having a stable and reliable political, economic environment along with membership in all relevant international organizations.

Final word was delivered by Mr. Roman Sabo, Director of Investment Division, who expressed great support of the agency SARIO for participating and organizing future events with any embassy in Slovakia. Team of SARIO is in touch with many representatives of economic sections on regular basis, which are one of the key partners of SARIO’s communication network and whose assistance in investment and trade projects is very appreciated. Therefore an opportunity to introduce services of the agency is very well received and based on that, further enhancement of future cooperation with more embassies is to be expected.