Following World War II, the Soviet bureaucracy pegged Czechoslovakia and East Germany as the primary bases for light vehicle production in the CE. Hungary was selected as the site for bus manufacturing [27Pavlinek P. A successful transformation? Restructuring of the Czech automobile industry. Omaha: Physica-Verlag 2008., 40Myant M. The Czechoslovak economy, 1948-1988. New York: Cambridge University Press 1989., 41Pavlinek P. Restructuring the Central and Eastern European automobile industry: Legacies, trends, and effects of foreign direct investment. Post Sov Geogr Econ 2002; 43(1): 41-77.]. In Czechoslovakia, the motor vehicle industry was nationalized, and Skoda, founded in 1895 in the town of Mlada Boleslav, north of Prague, was authorized as the sole-producer of small, inexpensive passenger cars in the region. Meanwhile, Tatra, which began making vehicles in 1850 in the present-day eastern Czech town of Koprivnice, was assigned the task of building large luxury cars [27Pavlinek P. A successful transformation? Restructuring of the Czech automobile industry. Omaha: Physica-Verlag 2008., 40Myant M. The Czechoslovak economy, 1948-1988. New York: Cambridge University Press 1989.]. “This directive meant, for example,” that Jawa Motors of Prague was ordered to cease its small car production and to concentrate only on motorcycles [27Pavlinek P. A successful transformation? Restructuring of the Czech automobile industry. Omaha: Physica-Verlag 2008.]. In addition, Skoda truck production was allocated to three Prague-based firms, Aero, Avia, and Praga.

In the 1950s, as the Czechoslovakian Government was instructed to focus more heavily upon the defense industry, the nation’s light vehicles production was reorganized. During this period, Tatra’s passenger car production was shifted to Skoda’s Mlada Boleslav plant and the former was directed to build military trucks and heavy-duty defense vehicles. Additionally, Jawa’s motorcycle and moped production was transplanted from Prague to the Povazska Bystrica District of present-day Slovakia’s Trencin Region; this district would later become home to foreign firms manufacturing tires, glass, cable assemblies, plastics, and metal components for automobiles [42SARIO. Regional analyses, 2007-2014. Slovak Investment and Trade Development Agency 2008-2015. Annually revised e-documents on the automotive sector published between 2007 and 2015. [Retrieved July 21, 2015]. Available from: http://www.sario.sk/?regional-analysis ].

During the 1960s and 1970s, the State invested more heavily in vehicle production, modernizing and expanding Skoda’s operations through the construction of several new factories. In response to pressure from Slovak politicians, this included a decision in 1971 to build a Skoda branch plant in Bratislava, which would become known as BAZ. Officially launched in the Bratislava Borough of Devínska Nova Ves on April 3, 1974, BAZ began by assembling Skoda 731 model sedans, 732 station wagons, and BAZ-brand light trucks, from parts manufactured in Czech plants [30Pavlinek P. Whose success? The state–foreign capital nexus and the development of the automotive industry in Slovakia. Euro Urb and Reg Stud 2015; 22, forthcoming. First published online in December 10, 2014.
[http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0969776414557965] ].

Also during the 1970s, output of light commercial vehicles was shifted from Vrchlabi (Czechia) to Slovakia’s Trnava Region, and tractor engine production commenced in the Zilina Region’s defense-industry city of Martin [27Pavlinek P. A successful transformation? Restructuring of the Czech automobile industry. Omaha: Physica-Verlag 2008., 43Smith A. Reconstructing the regional economy: Industrial transformation and regional development in Slovakia. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar 1998.]. Thereafter, large agricultural tractor manufacturing was shifted from Brno in Czechia to Martin. At the time, Martin was dominated by the large armaments firm ZTS TEES, whose “production profile [included] “Soviet-licensed T-model tanks, locomotives, locomotive engines, railway wagons, diesel motors…. and iron and steel” [43Smith A. Reconstructing the regional economy: Industrial transformation and regional development in Slovakia. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar 1998.]. Although these State-owned endeavors would never manufacture more than a few thousand Skoda cars annually under Socialism, the city-regions in the Bratislava-Zilina Corridor (Bratislava, Trnava, Trencin, and Zilina) would later become the core nodes of FDI in the Slovak auto industry; Nitra (automotive parts) and Kosice (steel) also would become complimentary nodes (again see Fig. 1).

Fig. (1) The bratislava, trnava, and zilina city-regions in slovakia.

Whereas the 1970s was a period of growth, the 1980s was marked by insufficient and misguided State investment. As a result, the technology, reliability, and fit and finish quality of Skoda’s small, inexpensive models lagged far behind Western automobiles. In 1989, this left the company highly vulnerable to foreign takeover, when the Iron Curtain fell and the Czechoslovakian economy was opened to market capitalism. Thereafter, in an effort to save its debt-ridden domestic car industry, the central government sought out foreign capital to partner with Skoda. On December 9, 1990, it found its savior, selecting VW over 23 other suitors, and selling the German automaker a 31 percent stake in Skoda’s Czechia-based operations for €315 million ($416 million) [44VW acquired 51% of the SEAT in June 1986, and, by the end of that year had increased its share to 75%, and thereby, took control of the Spanish automaker. See SEAT. SEAT company website: 60 years of SEAT history. [Retrieved September 21, 2013]. Available from: http://www.seat.com/content/com/com/en/company/history.html ]. Three months later, on March 12, 1991, VW again outbid five others for an 80 percent ownership share in BAZ, Skoda’s branch plant factory in Bratislava [27Pavlinek P. A successful transformation? Restructuring of the Czech automobile industry. Omaha: Physica-Verlag 2008., 37Jakubiak M, Kolesar P, Izvorski I, Kurekova L. The automotive industry in the Slovak Republic. Washington, DC: International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/World Bank, Commission on Growth and Development 2008. Working Paper No, 29, 44VW acquired 51% of the SEAT in June 1986, and, by the end of that year had increased its share to 75%, and thereby, took control of the Spanish automaker. See SEAT. SEAT company website: 60 years of SEAT history. [Retrieved September 21, 2013]. Available from: http://www.seat.com/content/com/com/en/company/history.html ].

As presented in Table 1, VW-BAZ assembled its first two VW Passat sedans at its completely re-tooled Bratislava plant in December 1991. Serial production commenced two months later in February 1992. Over the next two years, a paint shop and a gearbox assembly line was added, along with the manufacturing of VW’s popular Golf model and in 1994, VW bought out BAZ and took total control of the Bratislava operations; it secured 100 percent ownership in Czechia’s Skoda in May 2000 [45VW AG. Volkswagen Slovakia. Retrieved on various dates, [Retrieved June 15, 2015]. Available from: http://en.volkswagen.sk/en/Company/ plants.html ].

During the late 1990s and early 2000s, aided by €33 million ($44 million) in tax abatements from the government’s 1999 ‘Development of the Automotive Industry’ Initiative, VW continued to widen its Slovak footprint. This program also attracted numerous large foreign suppliers, such as Johnson Controls, Magna, Faurecia, Lear, SAS Automotive, and Brose, many of which located just north of VW Bratislava in the city’s Lozorno Industrial Park [37Jakubiak M, Kolesar P, Izvorski I, Kurekova L. The automotive industry in the Slovak Republic. Washington, DC: International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/World Bank, Commission on Growth and Development 2008. Working Paper No, 29].

Following the subsidies, VW expanded and retooled the Bratislava factory, resulting in a doubling in output to more than 200,000 vehicles by 2002. This included the launch of VW Polo subcompacts in January 2000 and the VW Touareg SUV in June 2002, with the latter date also commencing manufacture of Porsche Cayenne SUV bodies. These additions were followed by the introduction of the Audi Q7 luxury SUV in November 2005. VW also opened a large factory in May 2000 for the purpose of manufacturing gearboxes, chassis components, and other parts for its VW, Audi, Skoda, SEAT and Porsche brands, with 93 percent of the output being exported out of Slovakia [45VW AG. Volkswagen Slovakia. Retrieved on various dates, [Retrieved June 15, 2015]. Available from: http://en.volkswagen.sk/en/Company/ plants.html ].

In 2007, Polo production in Bratislava was halted and in March 2008 replaced by the larger Skoda Octavia model. The factory ceased output of the Octavia in 2010 as part of VW’s major retooling and expanding of the complex. Upon completion in late-2011, this approximately €302 million investment ($400 million) boosted plant capacity to 400,000 vehicles per year. In 2015, the factory employed 9,000 workers and produced 344,892 vehicles in 2013; output rose to 394,474 in 2014 [45VW AG. Volkswagen Slovakia. Retrieved on various dates, [Retrieved June 15, 2015]. Available from: http://en.volkswagen.sk/en/Company/ plants.html -47Volkswagen VW. Facts and figures, Navigator 2013. Wolfsburg: VW Group 2013.], (Table 1).

Twenty years after its opening, VW‘s Bratislava plant has remained Slovakia’s largest single FDI project. Including its Martin parts factory, the automaker employed 9,900 people nationwide [45VW AG. Volkswagen Slovakia. Retrieved on various dates, [Retrieved June 15, 2015]. Available from: http://en.volkswagen.sk/en/Company/ plants.html ]. In addition, in large part because of the Bratislava assembly plant, more than two-thirds of all FDI coming into Slovakia since 2002 has been allocated to the Bratislava Region; this proportion ranged between 55.9% and 62.5% from 1995 to 2001 [42SARIO. Regional analyses, 2007-2014. Slovak Investment and Trade Development Agency 2008-2015. Annually revised e-documents on the automotive sector published between 2007 and 2015. [Retrieved July 21, 2015]. Available from: http://www.sario.sk/?regional-analysis , 50Pavlinek P, Smith A. Internationalization and embeddedness in East-Central European transition: The contrasting geographies of inward investment in the Czech and Slovak Republics. Reg Stud 1998; 32(7): 619-38.
[http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00343409850119517] ]. As will be discussed later, regions in northern Hungary and Eastern Czechia also have greatly benefitted from VW’s presence in the Bratislava-Zilina Corridor.

Table 1

Light vehicles production plants in slovakia and in adjacent regions of czechia and hungary, 2013.

In total, VW has produced more than three million vehicles in Bratislava and more than four million gearboxes (transmissions) in Slovakia over the past 20 years [45VW AG. Volkswagen Slovakia. Retrieved on various dates, [Retrieved June 15, 2015]. Available from: http://en.volkswagen.sk/en/Company/ plants.html , 48OICA. World motor vehicle production by country and type: 1999-2014. Paris: International Organization of Motor Vehicle Manufacturers 1999-2015. Production and sales statistics for all years between 1999 and 2014. Retrieved on various dates, last July 23, 2015. Available from: http://oica.net VW’s output in 2013 would have been 426,313 and Slovakia’s total 988,882 if the Porsche Cayenne SUV bodies built in Bratislava were counted as light vehicles. SARIO [57] counted these in its total and report national production as 987,718 in 2013, see pp, 2, 4, 49SARIO. Automotive industry, 2010-2014. Slovak Investment and Trade Development Agency 2011-2015. Data obtained from this annually updated e-document, retrieved on various dates between 2010 and 2015, [Retrieved July 21, 2015]. Available from: http://www.sario.sk/sites/ default/files/content/files/Automotive%20Industry.pdf , 51Ward’s Communications. Ward’s automotive yearbook, 2014. Southfield, MI: Ward’s 2014., 52Ward’s Communications. Ward’s world’s vehicle data 2014. Southfield, MI: Ward’s 2014.]. However, in 2013, the German automaker was no longer the sole foreign car manufacturer with an assembly plant in Slovakia. After receiving a government incentive package of €170 million ($225 million) in January 2003 Peugeot-Citroen (PSA) of France agreed to build an assembly complex in Slovakia’s Trnava city, located approximately 44 miles (71 km) north of VW Bratislava (See Fig. 2). As shown again in Table 1, PSA’s factory, which launched production in October 2006, had an annual capacity of 300,000 vehicles. The plant employed 3,200 people in 2013, when it produced 248,411 mini hatchbacks and multi-purpose vehicles (MPV) [53PSA. PSA Peugeot Citroen annual reports, 2006-2012. Paris, 2007-2013. Annual reports downloaded on various dates, last October 1, 2013. Available from: http://www.psa-peugeot-citroen.com -55Kia Motors Slovakia. Kia motors company at a glance. Teplicka nad Vahom, Žilina, Slovakia 2015. [Retrieved July 15, 2015]. Available from: http://eng.kia.sk/ This included Kia Cee’d small hatchbacks (known as Kia Forte elsewhere), Kia Venga MPV (Kia Soul), and the twin compact SUV, the Kia Sportage/ Hyundai ix35 (Tucson in North America)].

Fig. (2) Slovakia’s city-regions in the bratislava-zilina auto corridor and nearby auto clusters.

In March 2004, a year after PSA’s announcement, the South Korean automaker Kia, a division of Hyundai Motors, accepted approximately €982 million ($1.3 billion) in financial incentives, infrastructure, and housing subsidies, in order to construct a plant in the Village of Teplicka nad Vahom, in Slovakia’s Zilina Region, situated 100 miles northwest (160 km) of Trnava [37Jakubiak M, Kolesar P, Izvorski I, Kurekova L. The automotive industry in the Slovak Republic. Washington, DC: International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/World Bank, Commission on Growth and Development 2008. Working Paper No, 29], (Fig. 2). The facility, which built its first car in December 2006, had an annual capacity of 300,000 vehicles. Kia employed 3,800 workers at the factory in 2013, which manufactured 313,000 subcompact hatchbacks, MPV, and SUV in 2013 [56AmCham. Trnava: a strategic choice for connection: The automotive industry. Online Magazine of the American Chamber of Commerce in the Slovak Republic. May 24, 2011. [Retrieved September 28, 2013]. Available from: http://www.amcham.sk/publications/ connection-magazine/issues/3081_the-automotive-industry ], (Table 1).

In addition to the substantial incentive packages, both PSA and Kia both were attracted to the Bratislava-Zilina Corridor by its location, its transportation infrastructure, the presence of several large Tier-I multinational automotive components suppliers, and the area’s relatively educated, skilled (particularly in technical, mechanical and metalworking), inexpensive and non-adversarial labor force; for example, Kia’s facility was situated just 20 miles (32 km) west of VW Martin [63Pavlinek P. Transformation of the Central and East European passenger car industry: selective peripheral integration through foreign direct investment. Environ Plann A 2002; 34(9): 1685-709.
[http://dx.doi.org/10.1068/a34263] , 64SARIO. Why Slovakia. Slovak Investment and Trade Development Agency 2014. [Retrieved July 21, 2015]. Available from: http://www.sario.sk/?labor-market ]. These location decisions then prompted several of their own home nation Tier-I suppliers to also open plants in Slovakia.

As a result of VW, PSA, and Kia’s facilities, employment in motor vehicles and parts related manufacturing in Slovakia had expanded from less than 1,000 in 1990 to 22,000 in 1993 and then 81,682 in 2012 [49SARIO. Automotive industry, 2010-2014. Slovak Investment and Trade Development Agency 2011-2015. Data obtained from this annually updated e-document, retrieved on various dates between 2010 and 2015, [Retrieved July 21, 2015]. Available from: http://www.sario.sk/sites/ default/files/content/files/Automotive%20Industry.pdf , 57Jacobs, A. J. Auto FDI in emerging Europe: Shifting production locales in the world auto industry. London: Palgrave, forthcoming. Based upon the author’s: site visits and/or factory tours of VW Bratislava, VW Martin, PSA Trnava, Kia Zilina, and Audi Gyor; and correspondences with government officials, automakers, and scholarly experts in the CE and Western Europe, from April 2011 through March 2016. ]. This total included 316 auto suppliers, the large majority of these being transplants from Germany, France, America, and more recently, South Korea. Among these, 242 were located within the Bratislava-Zilina Corridor extended, which included neighboring the Nitra and Banska Bystrica Regions [42SARIO. Regional analyses, 2007-2014. Slovak Investment and Trade Development Agency 2008-2015. Annually revised e-documents on the automotive sector published between 2007 and 2015. [Retrieved July 21, 2015]. Available from: http://www.sario.sk/?regional-analysis , 49SARIO. Automotive industry, 2010-2014. Slovak Investment and Trade Development Agency 2011-2015. Data obtained from this annually updated e-document, retrieved on various dates between 2010 and 2015, [Retrieved July 21, 2015]. Available from: http://www.sario.sk/sites/ default/files/content/files/Automotive%20Industry.pdf , 57Jacobs, A. J. Auto FDI in emerging Europe: Shifting production locales in the world auto industry. London: Palgrave, forthcoming. Based upon the author’s: site visits and/or factory tours of VW Bratislava, VW Martin, PSA Trnava, Kia Zilina, and Audi Gyor; and correspondences with government officials, automakers, and scholarly experts in the CE and Western Europe, from April 2011 through March 2016. ], (Fig. 1). Moreover, in 2013, the nation produced 906,303 cars and light passenger trucks (i.e., vans, SUV/CUV, and MPV, see Tables 1, 2). According to OICA [48OICA. World motor vehicle production by country and type: 1999-2014. Paris: International Organization of Motor Vehicle Manufacturers 1999-2015. Production and sales statistics for all years between 1999 and 2014. Retrieved on various dates, last July 23, 2015. Available from: http://oica.net VW’s output in 2013 would have been 426,313 and Slovakia’s total 988,882 if the Porsche Cayenne SUV bodies built in Bratislava were counted as light vehicles. SARIO [57] counted these in its total and report national production as 987,718 in 2013, see pp, 2, 4], this constituted an increase of 631,166 or 213.67% from 2000; Ward’s World Motor Vehicle Yearbook [52Ward’s Communications. Ward’s world’s vehicle data 2014. Southfield, MI: Ward’s 2014.] placed this expansion at 745,224 or 410.97%. In both cases, Slovakia’s 2013 output represented a 160-fold enlargement from the 5,732 vehicles assembled in the country in 1993, including just 2,958 cars [48OICA. World motor vehicle production by country and type: 1999-2014. Paris: International Organization of Motor Vehicle Manufacturers 1999-2015. Production and sales statistics for all years between 1999 and 2014. Retrieved on various dates, last July 23, 2015. Available from: http://oica.net VW’s output in 2013 would have been 426,313 and Slovakia’s total 988,882 if the Porsche Cayenne SUV bodies built in Bratislava were counted as light vehicles. SARIO [57] counted these in its total and report national production as 987,718 in 2013, see pp, 2, 4, 52Ward’s Communications. Ward’s world’s vehicle data 2014. Southfield, MI: Ward’s 2014.].

Table 2

Top 15 vehicle producing nations per 1,000 in population, 2013.

Overall, Slovakia was Europe’s seventh largest auto producing nation in 2013 [48OICA. World motor vehicle production by country and type: 1999-2014. Paris: International Organization of Motor Vehicle Manufacturers 1999-2015. Production and sales statistics for all years between 1999 and 2014. Retrieved on various dates, last July 23, 2015. Available from: http://oica.net VW’s output in 2013 would have been 426,313 and Slovakia’s total 988,882 if the Porsche Cayenne SUV bodies built in Bratislava were counted as light vehicles. SARIO [57] counted these in its total and report national production as 987,718 in 2013, see pp, 2, 4]. More impressively, as shown in Table 2, at 167.36 vehicles per 1,000 in population in that year, Slovakia ranked first worldwide in vehicles produced per capita; it was followed by Czechia and South Korea. No other CE nation besides Czechia and Slovenia produced more than 23 automobiles per 1,000 people. As shown in Table 3, per capita production was 368.60 in the Bratislava-Zilina Corridor, and area which contained 45.40% (or 2.46 million people) of its nation’s population in 2013, but which produced 100.00% of its light vehicles.

Table 3

Vehicle production/1,000 in population for slovakia’s city regions, 2013.

In addition, VW’s presence in Bratislava has served as a catalyst for economic growth not only in Slovakia, but also in nearby city-regions in Hungary and Czechia [27Pavlinek P. A successful transformation? Restructuring of the Czech automobile industry. Omaha: Physica-Verlag 2008.]. This materialized in December 1993, when VW began building engines in a plant just 49 miles (78 km) south of the VW Bratislava in Gyor, a city situated in northwest Hungary’s Gyor-Moson-Sopron County (Again, see Fig. 2). As displayed in Table 1, the facility now known as Audi Hungaria, began manufacturing cars (sporty Audi TT) in April 1998. This was followed in November 2007 by the assembling of approximately 200 Audi A3 convertibles (cabriolet) in November 2007 [58Audi AG. Audi: 2014 annual report. Ingolstadt, Germany: Audi Group 2015., 59Audi AG. Audi Hungaria Motor Kft. [Retrieved July 15, 2015]. Available from: http://audi.hu/en ].

In 2013, VW completed another major expansion in Gyor, investing €900 million ($1.2 billion) and transforming its Hungarian operations into a full-fledged assembly plant. In the process, the automaker raised its total employment at the site from 6,138 in 2009 to more than 9,000 on June 12, 2013, upon the commencement of production of Audi’s brand-new A3 sedan model. Meanwhile, annual vehicle production capacity in Gyor jumped from 55,000 in 2009 to 125,000, with the plant building 42,851 cars in 2013. This total jumped to 135,272 in 2014, when the factory also manufactured 1.97 million engines and employed 11,000 workers [59Audi AG. Audi Hungaria Motor Kft. [Retrieved July 15, 2015]. Available from: http://audi.hu/en ]. In total, VW has invested more than €5.7 billion ($7.5 billion) in the complex and has long-term plans that will ultimately raise plant vehicle output to 340,000 by 2018 [59Audi AG. Audi Hungaria Motor Kft. [Retrieved July 15, 2015]. Available from: http://audi.hu/en , 60Reuters. Audi may expand Hungary plant further from 2018. January, 26. 2011. [Retrieved June 30, 2013]. Available from: http://autonews.gasgoo.com/global-news/audi-may-expand-hungary-plant-further-from-2018-110126.shtml ].

Finally, as a result of its success in Zilina, in September 2005, Hyundai Motor announced that it would produce its own brand-named subcompact cars at a newly constructed, second CE assembly plant, situated just 53 miles (85 km) west of Zilina in the Village of Nosovice, within the Frydek-Mistek District of northeastern Czechia’s Ostrava Metropolitan Area (Again, see Fig. 2). The first vehicles at the so-named Hyundai Nosovice Plant began rolled off the assembly line on November 3, 2008. The factory, which built 303,460 subcompacts and MPV in 2013, employed 3,300 workers and had a typical annual capacity of 300,000 vehicles [61Hyundai Motors. Hyundai motor manufacturing Czech. General Information. Nosovice, CZ. [Retrieved June 15, 2015]. Available from: http://www.hyundai-motor.cz/english.php This included Hyundai ix20 and i30 (known as Elantra elsewhere), twins of the Kia Venga and Cee’d, respectively.], (Table 1).

The net result of these investments has been the development of what may be called the Bratislava-Gyor-Zilina-Ostrava Auto Production Zone, an area traversing parts of three nations (western and central Slovakia, eastern Czechia, and northwestern Hungary), with a nucleus of Bratislava, and a spine running along designated European Highway 75 or E-75 (See Fig. 3). Within this automotive production region’s three interconnected auto clusters - VW Bratislava-Audi Gyor; PSA Trnava; and Kia Zilina-Hyundai Nosovice- there were five foreign light vehicles assembly plants, employing 30,300 workers and with production capacity of 1,425,000 vehicles annually. These facilities also helped to spur the creation of approximately 100,000 automotive supplier jobs in the extended area [57Jacobs, A. J. Auto FDI in emerging Europe: Shifting production locales in the world auto industry. London: Palgrave, forthcoming. Based upon the author’s: site visits and/or factory tours of VW Bratislava, VW Martin, PSA Trnava, Kia Zilina, and Audi Gyor; and correspondences with government officials, automakers, and scholarly experts in the CE and Western Europe, from April 2011 through March 2016. ].

Fig. (3) The Bratislava-Zilina auto corridor and other assembly plants in the CE context.

The development of the Slovaka’s Bratislava-Zilina Corridor into a manufacturing hub for some of the world’s largest foreign automakers has been a prime example of how FDI has driven economic growth within certain post-Socialist nations. The related acceptance of Slovakia into the EU and the European Monetary Union (the Euro) suggest that its national economy has benefitted greatly from the presence of foreign automakers. On the other hand, has FDI transformed Slovakia into a semi-periphery nation situated between the core and periphery within the globe’s industrial division of labor? Or, have these developments merely made the long-term economic well-being of its largest city-regions and its nation, too overly dependent on the highly cyclical and mobile auto industry? The next sections will explore this question.

Wallerstein’s initial early 1970s categorizations of semi-periphery nations included “a wide range of [diverse] countries in terms of economic strength and political background,” such as Brazil, Finland, South Africa, South Korea, and much of Eastern Europe. He claimed that these former periphery nations had taken various paths towards their advancement within the world economic hierarchy. In addition, he suggested that the most successful of these nations were those that had risen to semi-periphery status through import-substitution; that is, they manufactured products that they had formerly imported from core countries. On the other hand, others had enlarged their economies by producing goods no longer desired in core countries. Still, others advanced when profit-seeking producers within core nations shifted their manufacturing location to their lower wage nations.

Related to the last point he stated:

When core producers face a situation of over-supply, they begin to compete intensely with each other to maintain their share in a comparatively shrinking world market for their finished goods (especially machinery). At this time, semiperipheral nation can, up to a point, pick and choose among core producers not only in terms of sale of their commodities (viz. OPEC oil) but also in terms of welcoming their investment in manufactures… [7Wallerstein I. The capitalist world-economy: Essays by Immanuel Wallerstein. New York: Cambridge University Press 1979.].

On the surface, the latter quote seems to describe the current over-supply of production in core nations and Slovak government’s selection of VW over five other suitors to acquire BAZ Yet, did the Slovak Government really pick VW or did VW actually select Bratislava for its lower wage, but relatively skilled labor force as a site to produce cars for export to the core? After all, the German automaker tendered the highest bid for the near-bankrupt BAZ only after acquiring its former parent, Skoda, whose main plant was located in Mlada Boleslav in north-central Czechia, just 205 miles (331 km) northwest of BAZ Bratislava. In reality, the integration of BAZ facility enabled VW’s to create process and production scale synergies with its core, export-oriented Czech operations [37Jakubiak M, Kolesar P, Izvorski I, Kurekova L. The automotive industry in the Slovak Republic. Washington, DC: International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/World Bank, Commission on Growth and Development 2008. Working Paper No, 29, 41Pavlinek P. Restructuring the Central and Eastern European automobile industry: Legacies, trends, and effects of foreign direct investment. Post Sov Geogr Econ 2002; 43(1): 41-77., 50Pavlinek P, Smith A. Internationalization and embeddedness in East-Central European transition: The contrasting geographies of inward investment in the Czech and Slovak Republics. Reg Stud 1998; 32(7): 619-38.
[http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00343409850119517] , 57Jacobs, A. J. Auto FDI in emerging Europe: Shifting production locales in the world auto industry. London: Palgrave, forthcoming. Based upon the author’s: site visits and/or factory tours of VW Bratislava, VW Martin, PSA Trnava, Kia Zilina, and Audi Gyor; and correspondences with government officials, automakers, and scholarly experts in the CE and Western Europe, from April 2011 through March 2016. , 62Smith A, Ferencíkova S. Inward investment, regional transformations, and uneven development in East-Central Europe: Case studies from Slovakia. Eur Urban Reg Stud 1998; 5(2): 155-73.
[http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/096977649800500204] , 63Pavlinek P. Transformation of the Central and East European passenger car industry: selective peripheral integration through foreign direct investment. Environ Plann A 2002; 34(9): 1685-709.
[http://dx.doi.org/10.1068/a34263] ].

As to whether or not the nascent, post-Socialist Slovakia of 1993 was a semi-periphery nation capable of picking and choosing which industries and FDI it accepted - the answer is, probably ‘not.’ Moreover, what seems more relevant is whether or not VW’s presence in Bratislava, along with that of PSA in Trnava and Kia near Zilina, actually has advanced the Slovakia’s economy position in the globe’s industrial division of labor from periphery to semi-periphery in 2015. With respect to the latter, and drawing upon definitions of semi-periphery, this is highly debatable.

Slovak Economy, Core and Peripheral Forms of Organization?

According to Chase-Dunn & Hall [3Chase-Dunn C, Hall T. Rise and demise: Comparing world Systems. Boulder: Westview Press 1997.], Wallerstein’s conceptualizations of the semi-periphery included five types of nations, those: “1) … [That] mixed both core and peripheral forms of organization; 2) … [that were] spatially located between core and peripheral nations; 3)… [that were] spatially located between two or more competing core regions; 4) … in which mediating activities linking core and peripheral areas take place; and 5) … which had institutional features [that were] intermediate in form between those forms in adjacent core and peripheral areas.” [7Wallerstein I. The capitalist world-economy: Essays by Immanuel Wallerstein. New York: Cambridge University Press 1979.]. A review of these five variations suggests that Slovakia only classifies as a semi-periphery nation based upon the most superficial criteria of the five.

In reference to Wallerstein/Chase-Dunn & Hall’s first type of semi-periphery nation, does Slovakia have both core and peripheral forms of organization? Superficially, the answer to this is yes. However, essentially all of Slovakia’s core-like industrial organizations were owned/ controlled by foreign TNCs, particularly major automakers and suppliers based in Western Europe, North America, and developed East Asia. According to the Slovak Investment and Trade Agency or SARIO, approximately 17 percent of all employment in Slovakia in 2012 (or 81,682) was directly employed in the motor vehicle industry, with more than three-quarters of this working for foreign firms. Thousands more Slovaks had indirect jobs servicing these auto plants and their workers. Moreover, nearly one-third of the value of all industrial production nation-wide and 30 percent of the value of all exports were derived from the auto sector in that year [49SARIO. Automotive industry, 2010-2014. Slovak Investment and Trade Development Agency 2011-2015. Data obtained from this annually updated e-document, retrieved on various dates between 2010 and 2015, [Retrieved July 21, 2015]. Available from: http://www.sario.sk/sites/ default/files/content/files/Automotive%20Industry.pdf , 57Jacobs, A. J. Auto FDI in emerging Europe: Shifting production locales in the world auto industry. London: Palgrave, forthcoming. Based upon the author’s: site visits and/or factory tours of VW Bratislava, VW Martin, PSA Trnava, Kia Zilina, and Audi Gyor; and correspondences with government officials, automakers, and scholarly experts in the CE and Western Europe, from April 2011 through March 2016. ].

Next, despite its plethora of foreign TNCs in manufacturing, Slovakia’s average monthly wage of €805 ($1,064) in 2012, ranked it third among four V4 nations of CE, trailing Czechia’s €998 ($1,316); Poland’s €842 ($1,113), but ahead of Hungary’s €771 ($1,019) [65Slovak Republic. Data and social statistics. Statistical Office of the Slovak Republic, Slovstat Database, 2015. [Retrieved June 15, 2015]. Available from: http://slovak.statistics.sk/ ]. In addition, Slovakia’s national average wage has continued to be very unevenly distributed, inflated by its capital city region of Bratislava. As shown in Table 4 for the more recently available 2013, the national average monthly wage of €891 ($1,177) was significantly lower than that of the Bratislava City-region, whose residents secured an average monthly wage of €1,182 ($1,627) in 2013. In fact, this disparity has remained fairly constant since 2001.

Table 4

Average monthly wages in slovakia by region, 2001-2013 (in € rounded).

As also presented in Table 4, whereas the capital area’s monthly wages expanded by €599 ($825) or 102.74% between 2001 and 2013, the national average increased by just €448 ($617) and 101.07%. In other words, whereas annual wages in Bratislava increased by €7,188 ($9,900) from €6,996 ($9,900) to €14,184 ($19,524) between 2001 and 2013, the national annual wage grew by only €5,376 ($9,900) from €5,316 ($7,317) to €10,692 ($14,717) during this period. Meanwhile, despite hosting major foreign automotive assembly plants and/or Tier-I suppliers, the city-regions of Trnava (€10,092 or $13,891), Zilina (€9,840 or $13,545), and Trencin (€9,708 or $13,363) all continued to have annual and wages below the national average. The situation was even more uneven between Bratislava and other regions of Slovakia [66Slovak Republic. Earnings of employees by NACE Rev. 2: Average monthly wages. Statistical Office of the Slovak Republic, STATdat, 2015. Public Data Base. [Retrieved June 15, 2015]. Available from: http://statdat.statistics.sk/ , 67Pavlinek P. Regional development implications of foreign direct investment in Central Europe. Eur Urban Reg Stud 2004; 11(1): 47-70.
[http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0969776404039142] ]. Lastly and as previously mentioned, in large part because of the Bratislava assembly plant, more than two-thirds of all FDI coming into Slovakia since 2002 has been spent in the Bratislava Region. Moreover, this proportion has risen over time, growing from between 55.9% and 62.5% during the 1995 to 2001 period.

In summary words, as Pavlinek [19Pavlinek P, Domanski B, Guzik R. Industrial upgrading through foreign direct investment in central European automotive manufacturing. Eur Urban Reg Stud 2009; 16(1): 43-63.
[http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0969776408098932] , 32Pavlinek P, Zenka J. The 2008-2009 automotive industry crisis and regional unemployment in Central Europe. Camb J Regions Econ Soc 2010; 3(3): 349-65.
[http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/cjres/rsq026] , 41Pavlinek P. Restructuring the Central and Eastern European automobile industry: Legacies, trends, and effects of foreign direct investment. Post Sov Geogr Econ 2002; 43(1): 41-77., 68Moving Progress VW. Volkswagen AG Annual Report 2014. Wolfsburg: VW Group Communications 2015.] and his collaborators claimed, although Slovakia may have become a middle income nation with semi-periphery-like GDP and wages, its widening uneven development and over-dependence on export-oriented, TNC-based Auto FDI, which has made it extremely vulnerable to global economic cycles, suggested that its organizational forms were more periphery-like than semi-peripheral. In sum, Slovakia really does not qualify as a semi-periphery nation under category one of Wallerstein/Chase-Dunn & Hall’s typology.

Despite possessing GDP, GDP per capita, and GNI per capita that are within the middle-tier of nations, and experiencing relatively robust growth since the end of the 2008-2009 global financial crisis, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation & Development (OECD), Slovakia and its economy are: 1) over-dependent on export-oriented FDI manufacturing in the automotive and consumer electronics sectors; 2) over-reliant on the economic recovery of a highly uncertain Euro Area; 3) impeded by government debt which has now reached constitutional limits; 4) obstructed by government inefficiency, corruption, high job turnover rates, and a lack of transparency; 5) beset by regional economic, infrastructural, and educational inequality that is among the highest among OECD-affiliated nations; 6) inhibited by skill shortages in the Bratislava Region accompanied by labor skills mismatches in the rest of the country; 7) stymied by slow job growth and high unemployment relative to economic growth; and 8) obstructed by stagnating/sluggish growth in disposable incomes which weighs on private consumption [73OECD. OECD economic surveys: Slovak Republic 2014. November 2014. Paris: Organization for Economic Cooperation & Development. Similar findings were reported in the OECD. Econ Outlook 2013; 2013: 1-93. [Paris: OECD.].].

Overall, in agreement with Pavlinek and his collaborators, the OECD believed that their over-dependence on Auto FDI had rendered Slovakia’s city-regions in the Bratislava-Zilina extremely vulnerable to the highly volatile, business cycles of the European auto industry and to potential world economic downturns. If the 2008 to 2013 period can be considered a reliable indicator, this and spatially concentrated, over-reliance on foreign automakers and the related extremely one-sided output to sales ratio will deepen in the near-term. During this period, as production in the Bratislava-Zilina Corridor expanded by 71.71%, from 527,534 to 906,303, domestic nation-wide vehicle sales actually declined by 30.50%, from 102,378 to 75,206 [52Ward’s Communications. Ward’s world’s vehicle data 2014. Southfield, MI: Ward’s 2014.]; early estimates by OICA for 2014 put vehicle production at 993,000 and new passenger car registrations at just 72,249 [48OICA. World motor vehicle production by country and type: 1999-2014. Paris: International Organization of Motor Vehicle Manufacturers 1999-2015. Production and sales statistics for all years between 1999 and 2014. Retrieved on various dates, last July 23, 2015. Available from: http://oica.net VW’s output in 2013 would have been 426,313 and Slovakia’s total 988,882 if the Porsche Cayenne SUV bodies built in Bratislava were counted as light vehicles. SARIO [57] counted these in its total and report national production as 987,718 in 2013, see pp, 2, 4]. The same appears to be the case in the larger tri-national auto zone, as nearby Audi Hungaria and Hyundai Nosovice were expected to expand their combined from 425,000 in 2013 to at least 640,000 by 2018, with local sales growth rates lagging far behind [57Jacobs, A. J. Auto FDI in emerging Europe: Shifting production locales in the world auto industry. London: Palgrave, forthcoming. Based upon the author’s: site visits and/or factory tours of VW Bratislava, VW Martin, PSA Trnava, Kia Zilina, and Audi Gyor; and correspondences with government officials, automakers, and scholarly experts in the CE and Western Europe, from April 2011 through March 2016. ].

Although it was too early to discern from available statistics, there is a chance that these imbalances may narrow slightly in the long-term. Starting in December 2011, VW began building a new series of UP! mini/small family cars in Bratislava. As a result, plant output more than doubled from 148,318 in 2011 to 394,474 in 2014, with more two-thirds of this production in 2014 being VW UP! models and its re-badged siblings, the Skoda Citigo, and SEAT Mii models. On the other hand, approximately 40% of overall factory production in Bratislava remained dedicated for the German market [45VW AG. Volkswagen Slovakia. Retrieved on various dates, [Retrieved June 15, 2015]. Available from: http://en.volkswagen.sk/en/Company/ plants.html , 47Volkswagen VW. Facts and figures, Navigator 2013. Wolfsburg: VW Group 2013., 57Jacobs, A. J. Auto FDI in emerging Europe: Shifting production locales in the world auto industry. London: Palgrave, forthcoming. Based upon the author’s: site visits and/or factory tours of VW Bratislava, VW Martin, PSA Trnava, Kia Zilina, and Audi Gyor; and correspondences with government officials, automakers, and scholarly experts in the CE and Western Europe, from April 2011 through March 2016. , 68Moving Progress VW. Volkswagen AG Annual Report 2014. Wolfsburg: VW Group Communications 2015.].

The most expensive of VW Slovakia’s new small car models, the VW Up!, was priced between $12,000 to $17,000 (€9,000-€13,000) and primarily targeted for core Western European markets. The company’s rebadged Skoda Citigo and SEAT Mii, however, which share both a platform and an assembly line with the UP! in Bratislava, were priced around $11,000 to $13,000 (€8,500-€10,000), and the company hopes this will make them affordable for buyers in growing CE markets [57Jacobs, A. J. Auto FDI in emerging Europe: Shifting production locales in the world auto industry. London: Palgrave, forthcoming. Based upon the author’s: site visits and/or factory tours of VW Bratislava, VW Martin, PSA Trnava, Kia Zilina, and Audi Gyor; and correspondences with government officials, automakers, and scholarly experts in the CE and Western Europe, from April 2011 through March 2016. ]. Of course such purchases may only serve to replace VW’s Czech-built Skoda and Spanish-built SEAT vehicle sales, as well those of small Peugeot, Citroen, Kia and Hyundai cars.

For similar reasons, PSA and Hyundai-Kia also have expanded output and product lines in Slovakia. Both now have two-tiered pricing structures for the small sedans, hatchbacks, and crossovers they build in the country, with both segments primarily exported to Western Europe, but with the lower end also geared to increase sales in emerging Europe. For example, Kia dramatically upgraded its Western Europe-bound Cee’d hatchback and raised its pricing similar to that of VW UP!. Meanwhile, its Venga MPV, introduced in 2009, was priced closer to Skoda Citigo and SEAT Mii and intended for emerging Europe [74Kia’s somewhat larger Zilina-built Sportage/Hyundai ix35 SUV also was geared primarily for Western Europe. Interestingly, earlier editions of this model were built by the independent carmaker Karmann in Osnabruck, Germany. Karmann went bankrupt in 2009 and was absorbed by its largest customer, none other than VW [see 83]. , 75VW. Volkswagen to produce the new small family in Slovakia. VW Press Release. April 4, 2009. [Retrieved July 5, 2012]. Available from: https://www.volkswagen-media-services.com/ ]. PSA has followed a similar pricing structure for its Citroen C3 Picasso MPV and its smaller cousin, the Peugeot 207 minis, respectively [57Jacobs, A. J. Auto FDI in emerging Europe: Shifting production locales in the world auto industry. London: Palgrave, forthcoming. Based upon the author’s: site visits and/or factory tours of VW Bratislava, VW Martin, PSA Trnava, Kia Zilina, and Audi Gyor; and correspondences with government officials, automakers, and scholarly experts in the CE and Western Europe, from April 2011 through March 2016. ].

The potential growth in domestic sales of vehicles built at home notwithstanding, as discussed earlier, Slovakia’s auto sector has failed, to date, to undertake the kind of import-substitution which transformed the Asian Newly Industrializing Economies (NIEs) and Brazil into the semi-periphery nations. In addition, despite rising incomes, its domestic market for new cars and other middle class consumer goods have remained relatively weak, relative to the aforementioned nations at similar points in their development curve. Finally, in contrast to Wallerstein’s expected semi-periphery growth path, both auto industry employment and production in Slovakia declined, rather than increased, during the most recent severe economic downturn, the 2008-2009 Global Financial Crisis/Great Recession [29Pavlinek P. The impact of the 2008-2009 crisis on the automotive industry: Global trends and firm-level effects in Central Europe. Eur Urban Reg Stud 2015; 22(1): 20-40.
[http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0969776412460534] , 32Pavlinek P, Zenka J. The 2008-2009 automotive industry crisis and regional unemployment in Central Europe. Camb J Regions Econ Soc 2010; 3(3): 349-65.
[http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/cjres/rsq026] , 33Pavlinek P, Zenka J. Upgrading in the automotive industry: firm-level evidence from Central Europe. J Econ Geogr 2011; 11: 559-86.
[http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/jeg/lbq023] , 49SARIO. Automotive industry, 2010-2014. Slovak Investment and Trade Development Agency 2011-2015. Data obtained from this annually updated e-document, retrieved on various dates between 2010 and 2015, [Retrieved July 21, 2015]. Available from: http://www.sario.sk/sites/ default/files/content/files/Automotive%20Industry.pdf , 73OECD. OECD economic surveys: Slovak Republic 2014. November 2014. Paris: Organization for Economic Cooperation & Development. Similar findings were reported in the OECD. Econ Outlook 2013; 2013: 1-93. [Paris: OECD.].].

As a result, outside of its geographic location in the CE, a fortuitous and somewhat superficial category at best, Slovakia does not appear to qualify as semi-periphery economy under any of Wallerstein/Chase-Dunn & Hall’s five types of semi-periphery nations. Rather, its situation more closely resembles what might be called the upper perimeter of the periphery, a nation whose income may rank within the semi-periphery, but where peripheral-like economic and political relationships with the core were more prevalent than in most semi-periphery nations. In other words, although it may be argued that the Capital Region of Bratislava may have achieved semi-periphery status income-wise, it appears that the Bratislava-Zilina Corridor’s current position on the whole within the world automotive division of labor lies somewhere between the semi-periphery and periphery, rather than between the core and periphery

In 1999, nearly eight year following VW’s launch of vehicle production at the former BAZ Plant in Bratislava, the Slovak Government began to aggressively recruit automotive FDI in through its ‘Development of the Automotive Industry’ Initiative. The subsidies provided under this program helped facilitate expansions at VW and attracted PSA, Kia, and numerous foreign automotive components manufacturers to the city-regions within the Bratislava-Zilina Corridor. They also earned the government praise from the World Bank, the European Automobiles Manufacturers’ Association (ACEA), Ernst & Young, Price-Waterhouse, Forbes, and others, for its post-Socialist neo-liberal reforms and progressive pro-business climate [76Forbes, S. Fact and comment: investors’ paradise. Forbes.com, August 11, 2003. [Retrieved October 9, 2013]. Available from: www.forbes.com/free_forbes/2003/0811/021.html -81Stenning A, Smith A, Rochovska A, Swaitek D. Domesticating neo-Liberalism: Spaces of economic practice and social reproduction in post-socialist cities. Malden, MA: Wiley Blackwell 2010.
[http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/9781444325409] ]. As a result, employment in Slovakia’s motor vehicles sector has more than tripled from 22,000 in 1993 to more than 82,000 in 2013.

While such accolades and outcomes were laudable, has Auto FDI really advanced Slovakia and its city-regions from periphery to semi-periphery status in the world’s industrial division of labor? Through brief review of automotive production related development in Slovakia’s Bratislava-Zilina Corridor, and drawing upon the theories Wallerstein, Chase-Dunn, Arrighi, and CE auto industry researchers, such as Pavlinek, this study examined this question. It found that, based upon Wallerstein and Chase-Dunn & Hall’s typology, outside of its income levels, Slovakia’s auto industry only qualifies it as a semi-periphery nation under the most superficial categorization: Its fortuitous geographic location in the CE.

As discussed herein, there have been several factors inhibiting Slovakia’s rise to semi-periphery status. Most prominent among them were: its lack of domestic automakers; its total dependence upon export-oriented Auto FDI; it its highly unbalanced and widening exports to sales ratio; its relatively high transnationality dependency index; and the continuation of its starkly uneven development trends, particularly, income and inward FDI highly favoring the capital city region, Bratislava, as compared with the rest of the nation.

In fact, because the Slovak Government sold off Skoda’s BAZ operations to VW, unlike the Asian NIEs of the 1980s and other current semi-periphery nations, such as the BRICs, Slovakia does not contain any domestic-owned auto producers. Foreign automakers built 100% of the 4.34 million automobiles built in the Bratislava-Zilina Corridor between 2006 and 2013, nearly all of which (99 percent), have been exported out of the country. In the interim, 589,365 new vehicles were sold in Slovakia or just 11.06% of total production, with sales down almost a third from their 2008 peak. This situation was almost identical for motor vehicle suppliers, with more than 90% of all components built in Slovakia bound for installation in vehicles assembled in core countries in Western Europe, and with less than half of the all parts installed in Slovakia-built vehicles being domestically manufactured.

Furthermore, as Stephen Hymer [82Hymer S. The multinational corporation and the law of uneven development. In: Bhagwati J, Ed. Economics and world order: From the 1970’s to the 1990’s. London: Macmillan 1971; pp. 113-40. The quote cited here is on page 133, 83Hymer S. The multinational corporation and the international division of labor. In: Cohen R, Felton N, Nkosi M, Van Liere J, Eds. The multinational corporation: A radical approach. New York: Cambridge University Press 1979; pp. 140-64.] cautioned more than 40 years ago, this relationship can expect to grow more insecure over time, with the national and local economies becoming more dependent upon FDI and in less control over their own development trajectories. This disembedding process, thereby, can only serve to threaten the long-term prosperity of Slovakia’s citizens, as any of the three foreign automakers building and exporting cars in Slovakia could sometime soon decide to downsize shift some or all of their production to another locale, such as back to the core or to a the lower cost nation in Europe. This already happened during the 2008-2009 Great Recession, when Slovakia experienced significant declines in vehicle output and automotive production related employment [32Pavlinek P, Zenka J. The 2008-2009 automotive industry crisis and regional unemployment in Central Europe. Camb J Regions Econ Soc 2010; 3(3): 349-65.
[http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/cjres/rsq026] ].

More specifically, Hyundai-Kia could consolidate their CE production in Czechia, or VW could cut output at its Bratislava Plant and shift production: 1) back to Germany; 2) to one of its existing light vehicle assembly factories in Czechia, Hungary, Poland, or Russia; or 3) to a new plant constructed in the nearby lower-cost nations of Belarus, Romania, Serbia, or Slovenia, all of which have aggressively recruited TNC auto plants. On the other hand, at one time, mounting losses at PSA spawned rumors that the French conglomerate would either close its Trnava Plant or sell its automotive business to either, General Motors (GM), Fiat, or China’s Dongfeng Motors [84McVeigh P. GM-PSA rumors may be a ‘stalking horse. Automotive News Europe. June 28, 2013. [Retrieved September 27, 2013]. Available from: http://www.autonews.com/article/ 20130628/BLOG15/306299999/ #axzz2g8a8Qn00 , 85Stothard M, Foy J. Peugeot in talks to sell stake to China’s Dongfeng. Financial Times. October 9, 2013. [Retrieved October 9, 2013]. Available from: http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/ af6512b0-30cc-11e3-b991-00144feab7de.html#axzz2hL9vECJL ]. While the Chinese automaker would probably keep PSA’s Slovak factory running, both GM and Fiat have well established operations in Poland, with the latter also having an assembly plant in Serbia.

Finally, Hymer [82Hymer S. The multinational corporation and the law of uneven development. In: Bhagwati J, Ed. Economics and world order: From the 1970’s to the 1990’s. London: Macmillan 1971; pp. 113-40. The quote cited here is on page 133, 83Hymer S. The multinational corporation and the international division of labor. In: Cohen R, Felton N, Nkosi M, Van Liere J, Eds. The multinational corporation: A radical approach. New York: Cambridge University Press 1979; pp. 140-64.] claimed that in nations overly dependent upon TNC FDI, statistics on GNP and income tended to disguise the true economic situation within these countries. Rather than promoting development from underdevelopment, he contended that such TNC dominance served to reinforce existing conditions of economic inequality and uneven development within receiver countries [86Hill R, Feagin J. Detroit and Houston: Two cities in global perspective. In: Smith M, Feagin J, Eds. The capitalist city: Global restructuring & community politics. Oxford: Basil Blackwell 1987; pp. 155-77.]. This finding accurately describes the case of Slovakia’s city-regions in 2015. An over-dependence upon export-oriented, TNC-based Auto FDI has done little to ameliorate historically uneven income patterns between Bratislava and the rest of the nation, even with the two other city-regions within the Bratislava-Zilina Corridor which have automobile assembly plants: Trnava and Zilina [3Chase-Dunn C, Hall T. Rise and demise: Comparing world Systems. Boulder: Westview Press 1997., 30Pavlinek P. Whose success? The state–foreign capital nexus and the development of the automotive industry in Slovakia. Euro Urb and Reg Stud 2015; 22, forthcoming. First published online in December 10, 2014.
[http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0969776414557965] , 40Myant M. The Czechoslovak economy, 1948-1988. New York: Cambridge University Press 1989., 43Smith A. Reconstructing the regional economy: Industrial transformation and regional development in Slovakia. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar 1998., 87Capek A, Sazama G. Czech and Slovak economic relations. Eur Asia Stud 1993; 45(2): 211-35.
[http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09668139308412087] -92U.S. Census Bureau. Countries and Areas Ranked by Population: 2013. [Retrieved June 15, 2015]. Available from: http://www.census.gov/ population/international/data/countryrank/ rank.php ]. The latter and Trencin have continued to have average annual/monthly wages that were less than 95 percent of national mean.

In the face of these findings, this article concludes that despite possessing GDP and GNI per capita levels that ranked it in the middle-tier of nations, and despite its entry into the EMU, Slovak and its Bratislava-Zilina Corridor’s city-regions, have not, as of yet, ascended from a peripheral to a semi-peripheral position in the world’s automotive industrial division of labor. Rather, their structural status now more closely resembles what might be called, the upper perimeter of the periphery, an area’s whose income may rank within the semi-periphery, but where peripheral-like economic and institutional activities remain much more common than core-like activities.