Location Bratislava American Chamber of Commerce in Slovakia in cooperation with SARIO organized on December 4th, 2012 in Košice, the fourth annual international investment conference Košice - Prešov Invest 2012. The focus of the event was mainly to present new topics and updates on business in Slovakia to established and potential investors. The conference was attended by more than 130 invited guests, the program consisted of 6 blocks, offering a widerange of topics, from strategies, to new trends, innovation, investment risks to the news from the self governing regions and infrastructure investment news. The event was held under the auspices of the Minister of Economy of the SR Tomáš Malatinský. The opening speeches were delivered by Jake Sledgers, the Executive Director of the American Chamber of Commerce (AmCham) , Todd Bradshaw, the representative of the General Partner of the conference - consulting company PwC, Pavol Pavlis, the State Secretary of the Ministry of Economy of the SR and Robert Šimončič, SARIO CEO. The initial block of the conference was devoted to key investment issues and strategies for the future where R.Šimončič introduced the result of AmCham initiative called the FDI Committee, of which he is the President. The Committee for the period of its activity has created a strategic document called “The 10 steps to winning the FDI race”. This document describes what needs to be done in order for Slovakia to be competitive in the struggle for investments that flow into Central and Eastern Europe in the years to come. The second block was devoted to new investment trends and SARIO was represented by Roman Sabo, the Head of Consulting and Project Management Department. He introduced to the audience SARIO services to established investors as well as the results of the agency in the field of expansions, a trend we may currently on the rise in Western Europe, but also in our country. The conference in addition to providing new information to the participants also gave space for informal discussions and networking. SARIO´s aim is to place incoming foreign investment especially to regions with high unemployment rate. The inhabitants of these regions as a result of incoming new foreign investment will be given the opportunity to find a job which will provide them with social security.
