Tatra Tiger

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"Tatra Tiger" is a nickname that refers to the economy of Slovakia following the ascendance of a right-wing coalition in September 2002 which engaged in a program of liberal economic reforms. The name "Tatra Tiger" comes from the local Tatra mountain range.

In 2004 and 2005, Slovakia had one of the highest gross domestic product growth rates in the European Union after some of the Baltic countries, reaching 6%. In 2006, the year-to-year growth amounted to unexpected 9.8% in the 3th quarter, which helped to increase the overall year economy growth expectation for 2006 from 6%/6.5% to at least 7.7%. This 9.8% growth (a low estimate) can be partly contributed to the launch of production of a new Peugeot SA plant. The growth came as a surprise to local analysts, given that another big foreign investor Kia is going to launch its production only in late 2006.

However, public polling shows that despite the resultant high growth rates, the public does not generally approve of the reforms, because they are associated with a drastic loss of the (previously high) social facilities (reform of the previously free health system, complete reform of the pension systems etc.), the elimination of progressive taxes (introduction of a flat tax), "hyper"-fast changes of laws and other legal regulations and other "collateral" problems. Moreover, the unemployment jumped to very high levels after the reforms began in 1998, and though it decreased back to its 1998 level in 2006 this has been combind with many yung workers moving abroad. Also, prices of real property increased considerably, a fact which however has to be partly attributed to the country's EU accession.

[edit] See also

East Asian Tigers: the original economic "tigers"—Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan—that experienced a period of high growth and industrialization between the 1960s and 1990s.
Celtic Tiger: Ireland's nickname during its period of rapid growth between the 1990s and 2002.
Baltic Tiger: a reference to the rapid economic growth of the Baltic states in the 2000s