Regional disparities in Slovak Republic from direct foreign investments perspective

Slovak Republic, likewise other member states of the European Union, has been experiencing problems with the inter-regional differences for long time. These are manifested in different forms (economic, social, environmental and others). Diverse macroeconomic regional indicators are used to express and quantificate the inter-regional differences. Among traditionally used and by experts acknowledged quantities of measurement of the inter-regional differences belong for example a gross domestic product (from diverse viewpoint and specification), labor market indicators, e.g. employment and unemployment rates, demographic development indicators, indicators assessing environment condition or standard of life, as well as the indicators quantifying the investments condition and development (domestic or foreign) that flow into the object territory since we consider them an important factor and precondition of growth and development of the state as a whole, as well as its individual regions. Presented contribution deals with an issue of the inter-regional differences formulation and measurement in the Slovak Republic on a NUTS 3 regions examination level (from an uniform system of the territorial units classification viewpoint), it means the autonomous districts (from a territorial-administrative order of Slovak Republic viewpoint), from direct foreign investments' point of view. In the contribution there are theoretically defined basic concepts with which we operate, a specified methodological procedure for the inter-regional differences formulation and measurement, a direct foreign investments condition analysis from 1997 to 2007 (development of the direct foreign investments during above period in all autonomous districts were subjected to a statistical examination) as well as statistical testing that will reveal a convergence (meaning a moderation/decrease) or a divergence (meaning a deepening) of the inter-regional disparities on the NUTS 3 level. In addition to an absolute formulation of the direct foreign investments condition we also quantify them in a relative proportional formulation (meaning a particular region's share on an overall direct foreign investments flowing to Slovakia).