Slovakia: Small country, auto giant episode artwork

EPISODE · Jan 21, 2026 · 17 MIN

Slovakia: Small country, auto giant

from Business Daily · host BBC World Service

When Slovakia was part of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic, the cars it made were noisy, thirsty and slow by western standards at the time. But when Volkswagen bought the car-maker Skoda, that was the beginning of a major change. Now, Slovakia makes almost a million cars a year and with Volvo opening a factory here in 2027, it’ll be a quarter of a million more. Extraordinary for a country of five million people. We visit a factory and find out why this small nation is attracting so much car industry investment. If you'd like to get in touch with the programme, our email address is [email protected] and produced by John Laurenson(Picture: Workers on a production line in a car factory, Slovakia. Credit: BBC/John Laurenson)

Episode metadata supplied by the publisher feed · Published Jan 21, 2026

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Slovakia: Small country, auto giant

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